Cultural Value for Museums: Museumnacht 

Bachelor thesis

CULTURAL VALUE FOR

MUSEUMS:

MUSEUMNACHT

Louise McBryde

University of Amsterdam

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Statement of Originality

This document is written by Student Louise McBryde who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document are original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

Abstract

A museum’s main focus is producing cultural value, but economic viability, competition, and other factors at play has emphasized the need to focus on their visitors. A possible solution to increase their visitor and produce cultural value lies in museumnacht. Museumnacht in

Amsterdam is a nighttime event where museums open for young locals to enjoy the exhibition and programs. This event certainly helps with visitors during the event but the research question that needs answering is How can participating in museumnacht add cultural value for

partaking museums in Amsterdam? To answer this question, a qualitative method of research using interviews have been done. Three museums and a guest location, which is a cultural organization, have been interviewed to understand their perspective on how museumnacht adds cultural value for them. There is not enough evidence in the data suggesting that cultural value was added through this event. Additionally, a dilemma was found between the focus on visitors and a museums’ exhibition during museumnacht that was discussed in the interviews. And lastly, their goal of getting young visitors to come after the event was not found but there were no disadvantages to participating. Limitations in the investigation, namely inexperience, could have affected the findings of this research.

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Table of Content

Chapter 1: Introduction 5

Chapter 2: Literature Review 7

2.1 Museum’s focus on cultural value 7

2.2 Business side of museums 8

2.2.a Economic survival 8

2.2.b Competition 9

2.2.c Strategy 9

2.2.d Marketing 10

2.3 Museumnacht as a bridge between culture and business 11

Chapter 3: Conceptual Framework 12

Chapter 4: Methodology 14

4.1 Participants 14

4.1.a Rijksmuseum 14

4.1.b NEMO Science Museum 15

4.1.c Tropen Museum 15

4.1.d Power of Art House 16

4.2 Research Design 17

4.2.a Data collection 17

4.2.b Data analysis technique and procedure 17

Chapter 5: Results 19

5.1.a Rijksmuseum 19

5.1.b NEMO Science Museum 20

5.1.c Tropen Museum 21

5.1.d Power of Art House 22

Chapter 6: Analysis 23

6.1 Cultural value creation through museumnacht 23

6.2 Understanding museumnacht 24

6.2.a The dilemma: Visitors vs Exhibition 24

6.2.b Benefits and Disadvantages of participating in museumnacht 25

Chapter 7: Conclusion 27

7.2 Limitations and weaknesses 28

7.3 Personal gains 28

7.4 Further research 29

Appendix 33

(1) Transcription of Interview: Rijksmuseum 33

(2) Transcription of Interview: NEMO Science Museum 36

(3) Transcription of Interview: Tropen Museum 39

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Chapter 1: Introduction

The halls of museums are filled with knowledge, history and invaluable pieces of culture. Museums are a collection of cultural memory, an organization to exhibit and spread knowledge to the public. From Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol at the Moco museum to Anne Frank’s

diary at the Anne Frank House, these cultural pieces fulfills the public’s need to learn about

culture. It’s an organization that reminds us of past, present, and future issues around the world using a multitude of mediums.

They produce culture for the public to consume in the forms of painting, sculptures, significant buildings, education, and social interaction. Their significance is emphasized in the cultural value they bring to society. Cultural value embodies different types of value such as social or educational value and can be seen in everyday life in music, art, or social events. It is what drives society to visit museums, to learn about different culture in a variety of mediums. It is this value that museums bring to society and is the value that museums need to create and increase to gain visitors. They can expose social and political issues and give visitors a different perspective that they otherwise wouldn’t see, it’s a place of informal learning made for everyone. It creates a future generation of educated and civilized people that remember the past through creative learning. This is why it’s important for museums to be in our society, and why it is important that museum’s think of their future viability. Thus, how do we ensure a diversified demographic of society take part in cultural consumption?

Once a focus of research and preservation, is now more visitor and social oriented with added responsibility to the public. Justification for public funding and the rise for performance measures in the cultural industry in recent years have shifted museums’ focus. This shift has sparked innovation across different types of museums on how to engage their visitors. This is where museumnacht comes into play.

Museumnacht first started in 1999 with a goal to market museums to the local youths of

Amsterdam and many museums have since taken part in it every year, as an innovative idea to engage a different, more untouched audience. The traditional museum experience of

contemplating over pieces during the day with a sense of strictness has been flipped on its head by museumnacht. A once a year event where young adults can visit Amsterdam’s museums in a more relaxed setting at night with a programme that is made with their interests in mind. A group of audiences that museums have been failing to capture now flock to these museums for a night to consume culture on their terms.

As a cultural organization who produces culture, this investigation aims to understand: How can participating in museumnacht add cultural value for partaking museums in Amsterdam? This study aims to understand whether museums increase value for themselves when taking part in this event. What cultural value do they increase and how? Does the cultural value differ between different types and sizes of museums?

This research will be case study based, investigating museumnacht to fully understand this phenomenon. Before obtaining data, research on this topic must be done and will be presented in the literature review. Previous research on cultural value, the museum industry and its changing environment and how museumnacht fits in this context. To best answer the question above, museums of varying sizes that partake in museumnacht will be researched to understand the benefits that they receive when taking part in this event. Varying sizes and types of museums will be interviewed using a semi-structured format and will be analyzed to find for themes in the data. The theory brought forth in this paper will be grounded in observation, utilizing the

grounded theory.

This research will add to the ongoing investigation on museum strategy to ensure long term viability. By investigating the viability of museumnacht for museums or give inspiration to how to move forward when focusing on value creation. Furthermore, this investigation has

implications of museum management as it can help make strategic decisions for their museum. Previous research discusses museumnacht in many different countries have focused on the “economical, cultural, and social gains” (Gordin & Devoda, 2014, p.33) of these events or the “tourism development and territory regeneration” for the cities. But none have researched from the museum's perspective of whether it adds cultural value for them.

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Chapter 2: Literature Review

Background information on museums and some theories are needed before the research can continue. In the upcoming section, the recent shift for museums to a more visitor-oriented mindset and the business side of museums will be explained to understand why museumnacht can be helpful for museums. It is also important to note why museums are so different now than they were before and how. Furthermore, the concept of cultural value will be investigated to understand what cultural value is as it will be applied later in the research. Lastly, previous research on museumnacht will be mentioned for its potential benefits that could have been researched in other countries and in different settings. This literature review will be used as a bases for the conceptual framework and help in the research on this topic.

2.1 Museum’s focus on cultural value

Being a cultural organization, economic profit is not a goal for museums. Historically, museums of varying sizes have a similar mission: to collect and preserve cultural heritage and to educate the public (Harney, 2005). Museums are physical places with a goal of cultural continuity, a way for culture-keeping (Pekarik, 2011). It can be concluded that museums produce culture, bringing cultural value for its visitors. The concept of cultural value is abstract, it encompasses many different levels and dimensions. According to David Throsby (2003, p. 169) cultural value is assessed using a variety of attributes such as “aesthetic quality” or “social function” amongst others. He also discusses “intangible cultural capital” which “supports human activity, and in

the diversity of cultural manifestations within communities”. Furthermore, “tangible cultural capital” is one that comes in forms of artwork and artifacts such as paintings or locations. In the

case of museums, many different types of cultural value is brought to visitors, the value of history and aesthetic, the value of learning, the value of culture in itself, social value, etc. The question that needs to be asked is then what type of cultural value is lacking, what can be added and how? Camarero, Garrido, and Vicente (2011) explains that innovation in value creation focuses on the needs and wants of visitors to realize a museum’s financial and social goals. Thus, to add value for museums, they must think of their audience. An interesting concept within cultural value is embodied cultural capital. First term by Pierre Bourdieu (1986) is a concept of the accumulation of an individual’s cultural knowledge (Do Carmo, 2020). A museum’s mission

to educate the public relates to this concept as attending museums will increase an individual’s embodied cultural capital.

2.2 Business side of museums

To be functioning organizations, museums have their business sides, although it is not their focus. As discussed, the focal point of museum is the cultural value they bring to society. In the upcoming section, the need to look towards aspects of business will be discussed, first by divulging in the shift to a more visitor-oriented mindset due to economic feasibility and competition. Furthermore, the need for a business strategy due to the shift.

2.2.a Economic survival

With the recent economic recession, economic survival was a main goal for many museums around the world (Harney, 2005). Though museums take up a large part of public money (Madison, 2004) governments no longer believe preservation and exhibition of collection to be enough for the allocation of public subsidies for museums, they now need justification (Gilmore & Rentschler, 2002; Pop & Borza, 2014; Waltl, 2006). Tighter restrictions and changes in cultural policies have shifted museums to a visitor-oriented mindset as well as searching for a wider variety of financing (Camarero, Garrido, & Vicente, 2011).

The different elements that a museum should contribute to was articulated by Clive Gray (2008) as having high quality that is creative and inspires, for learning, education and gives access and is inclusive. Furthermore, strategically, they emphasized concerning “children, young people,

communities, economy, and delivery” (Gray, 2008, p.210). It continues with the museum's role

pertaining to social and political change, including social inclusion.

Different countries have different ways to communicate the roles that they want museum’s to play but all have the similar characteristics of cultural education and ensuring inclusivity

(Reussner, 2003). Cultural policies shape the relationship between museums and the community and it is vital for museums to “[fulfill] their duties as public institutions […] in order to

legitimate public funding” (Reussner, 2003, p.96). These characteristics that museum’s have to

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The relatively new challenge for economic viability has also shifted museum’s to be more business minded (Harney, 2005).

2.2.b Competition

The preservation of collection and research was once a museum’s only responsibility, but recently their responsibility has shifted to serving the public (Kotler & Kotler, 2000) due to changes in the environment of the industry. There was a boom in the number and the quality of museums in the western world, creating a buzz and transforming them to cultural icons in the urban landscapes (Burton & Scott, 2003). Parallel to this increase, the leisure industry was also experiencing growth, which changed the competitive nature of the environment (Camarero, Garrido, & Vicente, 2011). Evidence shows that during the time span of 1990 to 2000 multiple countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy saw a decrease in museum

attendance. The new threat from the entertainment and leisure industry is also a growing concern (Kotler & Kotler, 2000) and with new competition, museums shift to a more visitor-oriented mindset to entice visitors to choose them over the many different options.

2.2.c Strategy

Many museums have looked towards strategic management that is applied to the business sector as a tool, but the complex semantics between the sectors make it difficult to fully implement and transfer (Kovach, 1989). Nonetheless, it is more important than ever to think strategically to broaden their audience and increase their value when museums are more visitor focused.

Museums’ business model differs from a traditional for-profit business model due to the difference in outcome, instead of revenue their outcome is public good created (Falk and Sheppard, 2006). But, similarly the business model for both are processes that think of how to serve their customers, or in a museum's case, their visitor’s needs and involves strategy and implementation. A key change mentioned by Falk and Sheppard (2006) is to change their “one

size fits all” approach to their visitors of serving everybody the same way. Instead shifting to a

more customized experience to ensure long term quality relationships with more focused targets. An approach for strategic management mentioned by Reussner (2003) is an external marketing approach which focuses on a visitor-related concept that has been studied by multiple

researchers. It is important to note that “demand for broad cultural participation” (Reussner, 2003, p.97) counts not just as an increase in the number of visitors, but also a variety in demographic of museum visitors.

Furthermore, the strategic management employed for museums should realize their cultural policy duties of inclusion, education, and those mentioned before. One of many steps when realizing strategic management is strategic analysis, including organisational and environmental analysis. This is used to identify strengths and weaknesses within the museum, and opportunities and threats in the industry. Museums’ position with their strengths and identifying gaps will be done to help them plan accordingly (Reussner, 2003).

2.2.d Marketing

Within the topic of museumnacht, another business side to museums worth mentioning is marketing. There are four factors that introduced museums to marketing, growth of museums, financing, competition in the museum industry, and a need to understand visitors (Kirezli, 2011). According to Bonita Kolb (2005) a recent phenomenon has emphasized the importance of

marketing for cultural organization, cultural consumers. Stephen Weil claims that “marketing

can play a critical role in increasing the attractiveness of [a] museum” (Weil, 1999 in Cole,

2008, p.178).

Marketing can help create a brand and target specific types of visitors the museums are aiming for. Denise Cole (2008) explains to target local communities, museum should broaden a museum’s connection representing the local culture and relevance to the present. Dialogue and collaboration with local communities and agencies are suggested to understand the priorities and values of the target group. A way to extend a museum’s marketing is extending their “product”, what the museum offers to their visitors (Kirezli, 2011). It is the most resourceful and is

changeable, both the tangible and intangible provided. One way to do so is to expand their variety to keep regular visitors interested and attracting new visitors.

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2.3 Museumnacht as a bridge between culture and business

Museumnacht not only holds a multitude of events in varying museums around Amsterdam, it is

also held at night. A different experience than going to the museum during the day, at night it feels more relaxed and is more targeted to youths. It is an event that occurs in other cities around Europe and North America to take advantage of the night to promote culture (Evans, 2012).

Researches were done on the ‘The Light Night’ initiative that was under development in the United Kingdom to understand whether this type of initiative will help with the revitalization of towns and city centers by encouraging people to consume culture and the arts (Jiwa, et al., 2009). They found that this concept is instrumental to ‘developing sustainable places and communities’ and ‘overcome[…]negative perceptions associated with the night-time economy’. In the United Kingdom, the main objectives of this event is to encourage the younger age group to come to these cultural places, to stimulate the cultural sector, and to show the contribution of the cultural sector to the late night economy (Evans, 2012).

Chapter 3: Conceptual Framework

The conceptual framework will integrate existing theory from the literature review with

expectations about museumnacht’s cultural value creation for museums. It will be based on the shift to a visitor-orientation, strategy and marketing, cultural value, and previous research on

museumnacht.

The concept of cultural value is important in this research as it aims to investigate whether it is added through museumnacht. Museums mainly possess tangible cultural value in the form of artifacts or artworks. What they lack in is intangible cultural value which is described as

supporting “human activity, and in the diversity of cultural manifestations within communities” (David Throsby, 2003, p.169). It is proposed that museumnacht will fill this gap as it is an event within a targeted community that encourages social interaction and cultural education.

The literature review evidence changes in priorities for museums because of competition and economic feasibility. More specifically, the increase in the amount of museum and the threat from the entertainment and leisure industry. In addition, the need to justify public subsidies and the decrease in donations after the recession have shifted their focus from their collections to their visitors. It is hypothesized that finding will be in line for the museums in Amsterdam and will be a driver to partake in museumnacht as to broaden and entice an untapped group of audience.

A museum’s strategy was also discussed in the literature review, to accommodate the shift to a visitor-orientation, that focuses on more customized experiences. This type of strategy is to ensure long term quality relationships with visitors, and both increase the number of visitors and increase the variety. Museumnacht is an event that is in line with this strategy and is proposed to realize the goal. It is a customized experience for a target group, youth ranging from 18 -35 years of age. It also not only increases the number of visitors for museums, but also increases the variety as it targets a group that is under-represented in the museum industry.

13 With the shift and changing environment of the museum industry, marketing now plays a role to help with the demand to increase visitors. As mentioned, a variety in product offering will help expand a museum’s marketing and target specific groups in the local community. Museumnacht can help market museums to a younger group of audience and make it more attractive to them while building the museum’s brand in the eyes of this target group.

Chapter 4: Methodology

This section describes the methodology that will be used is described and argued for. First, the participants of this research and why, methods to retrieve data, type of data, and justification for all decisions.

4.1 Participants

The participants of this study will comprise museums or cultural organizations that have taken part in museumnacht. The organizations that have been chosen are Rijksmuseum, Tropen museum, NEMO science museum, and Power of Art House. These were chosen due to their different type and sizes to fully understand the cultural value it adds for them and reveal any differences. The categorization of type of museum will be straightforward but the size of museums will be based on visitor number in relation to each other. Furthermore, the method of obtaining data will be fully explained and justified to reveal why it is the best for this research.

4.1.a Rijksmuseum

In this museum art and history meet to be exhibited to the public. Their mission states that they offer “a representative overview of Dutch art and history from the Middle Ages onwards, and of

major aspects of European and Asian art” (Vision and mission of the Rijksmuseum, n.d.). They

are known for their exhibit of Dutch masters such as Rembrandt van Rijn and Johannes Vermeer and exhibiting other artists from Europe, with the most recent limited exhibit being Caravaggio and Bernini. Rijksmuseum is the most visited museum in Amsterdam, with a recorded 2,344,353 visitors in 2018 alone (Rijksmuseum, 2018). They are the third most visited attraction in The Netherlands in 2018 overall (Kamer, 2019).

Concerning its organization, Rijksmuseum employs an average of 636 employees as stated in their annual report in 2018. In the same year, they received a total of approximately €63 million in income. Of that total, €16.5 million (26%) are subsidies for public activities, €8.1 million (12%) is from other public related income and service contracts, and €5.4 million (8.5%) is from sponsors. Their highest income on its own are from ticket sales, €26 million (41%) in 2018 (Rijksmuseum, 2018).

15 Rijksmuseum was chosen for this research to represent large museums in Amsterdam that partake in museumnacht. As the number one most visited museum in Amsterdam, they do not struggle with exposure and audience attraction, yet they partake in museumnacht. It can be expected that the value museumnacht brings for them is not grounded in business but in culture.

4.1.b NEMO Science Museum

NEMO is a science museum situated in Amsterdam, it will be the only museum in this research that focuses on children and families as their audience. Their mission is to “bring science and

technology closer to the public in an interactive and accessible way”, the museum is a medium

for interactive and informal learning. In 2018, 655,000 people (NEMO, 2018) visited NEMO making them the “fifth largest museum in The Netherlands in terms of visitor numbers” (NEMO, n.d.) 36% of their visitors were younger audiences under 18 years of age.

As an organization, they had an average of 145 employees at a time. In terms of income, 68% came from their own device in the form of entrance tickets, their shop, etc. 20% came from government subsidy and, 12% came from sponsors and project support that they acquired themselves.

NEMO science museum was chosen to represent medium sized museum that are still large in Amsterdam. They are in a spot of not quite as large as for example Rijksmuseum or Van Gogh museum but not quite small enough to be characterized as merely medium. Additionally, their visitor demographic is interesting and an understanding of why they partake in museumnacht when it is not their usual demographic will give a deeper understanding of this event and its value.

4.1.c Tropen Museum

Tropen is a museum about world culture, their exhibitions tell a human story. Their mission is to bring awareness of the interconnectedness of people from all over the world by exhibiting the similar stories people share. They are a part of a foundation called the National Museum of World Cultures Foundation (Stitching Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen / NMVW) which consists of three museums. In 2018 they had a total of approximately 210,000 visitors, out of the

approximately 423,000 visitors the foundation reported, the highest of the three (Stitching Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, 2019). Their exhibition focuses on bringing human stories to light, emphasized by their new permanent exhibition called Things That Matter which showcases objects of personal sentiment that is linked to social issues.

All information going forward is on the foundation consisting of three museums including Tropen. As of the end of 2018, the foundation NMVW reported an average of 142 employees working at a time (Stitching Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, 2019). Most of their income comes from subsidies, a total of approximately €18.2 million (73%) out of the approximately €24.7 million in income. They receive different types of subsidies such as for housing, their collection, and cultural subsidies.

Tropen museum was chosen to represent medium sized museums in Amsterdam. Their mission to bring awareness of culture itself makes this museum interesting in this study of cultural value added. To understand what drives them to partake in museumnacht for a museum that primarily uses a specific kind of culture as their capital. Furthermore, compared to NEMO, another

medium sized museum, their income in subsidy is significantly higher. It would be interesting to see if that has any effect.

4.1.d Power of Art House

This cultural organization is not a museum, it is an “artistic think tank and creative collective of

designers, socio-cultural entrepreneurs, producers and other creative thinkers, that commits creative interventions and campaigns to bring socio-cultural themes into the spotlight” (About

us, n.d.). It is a fairly new organization and there is not a lot of information on this organization due to its small size.

This organization is not defined as a museum and was only a guest location during the event because of it. But considering it took part in museumnacht and is a cultural organization, it was interesting to research the cultural value it adds for them as well. This participant will be used in this study to further understand and link the cultural value added between different sizes and types of museum and cultural organizations.

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4.2 Research Design

A qualitative approach will be taken to explore and describe the themes and connections of the outcome of the investigation of cultural value through museumnacht for museums. This

investigation is case study of museumacht with all four participants having taken part in the event. Exploring the museum’s point of view instead of the museumnacht organizers will explain the cultural benefits of the events that the museums experience instead of what the organizers vision of the experience would be. All participants in this research are of different sizes and types to have a deeper understanding of this event for museums across the cultural industry.

4.2.a Data collection

The semi-structured interview method will be used to collect data for this research. It is a method of interview with a list of predetermined questions, but it is conversational and allows

participants to discuss what they feel could be important (Longhurst, 2003). It also allows the interviewee to explore identified themes further while interviewing the participant. The employees who have had a hand in the process of museumnacht for their respective museums will be interviewed. Their interviews recounting museumnacht for their organization will be the sole data collected for this investigation.

4.2.b Data analysis technique and procedure

After data collection and transcription is done, analyzing the data is the next step of the

investigation at hand. The data analysis technique that will be used will be inspired by a simple qualitative data analysis brought forth by O’Connor and Gibson (2003). This is a simple

qualitative data analysis technique that finds themes in the data to find answers for this investigation by identifying overarching themes. The step-by-step guide will help analyze the data correctly and because the research being done is quite simple, a simple analysis technique is sufficient for this research.

The steps of analyzing the qualitative data consists of organizing the data by first finding the answers to the original question of this research which pertains to whether museumnacht

adds cultural value for museums. In addition, highlighting themes or ideas relating to the question and organizing the data in terms of concepts and themes to easily find them.

The step that follows after organization is to find themes and concepts. Identifying words or phrases frequently used and understanding the meaning in the language used will help find overarching ideas. Furthermore, following identifying the concepts and ideas in the data, coding and categorizing the data comes next. This will further break down the frequent concepts

mentioned into categories.

Step three in the process is “building over-arching themes in the data” (O’Connor & Gibson, 2003). Many categories identified in the step before overlap under an overarching theme, condensing ideas even further.

The last step in the data analysis process is explaining the findings. In this step, moving away from O’Connor and Gibson’s analysis, the grounded theory approach will be utilized. This research will use a grounded theory approach which is a qualitative tradition that identifies theories that are rooted in observation (Trochim, Arora, & Donnelly, 2016). After analyzing the data, the core theory, the explanation of the analysis, will be based on the data.

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Chapter 5: Results

This chapter will present the results of the interview with employees of each museum, transcripts can be found in the appendix (1 – 4). The results will be presented following themes starting with reason to participate and goal of participation, benefits of participating, and disadvantages of participating. After these questions are answered, results obtained through interviews that did not follow the line of questioning but are still important to the understanding of museumnacht for museums are presented. All data is anonymous and to ensure anonymity, the museums’ name the employee represent will be used instead. Though the museums’ name will be used, it is the opinion of the employee they represent that is presented.

5.1.a Rijksmuseum

When asked why Rijksmuseum participated in museumnacht and the goal in mind, they explained that it is a “great event to bring young people to culture and museum” (appendix 1). Their usual target audience is focused on international tourists, cultural consumers, described as “cultural lovers”, and schools, so this event is a way they can target an audience they didn’t have access to before. Rijksmuseum does have access to children in schools through various events but after the age of 18, they kind of “lose” them and this is a way to get them back.

Furthermore, they also explain that their exhibition itself is not targeted for younger visitors. The lack of interest from younger visitors stems from their lack of interests in museums, described as seeing art and visiting museums as “boring”. Rijksmuseum also does not usually target young adults because of this fact, and they want to “sell tickets and share the art as much as [they] can” (appendix 1) and so they don’t focus on getting them to the exhibition, instead focusing on groups they know will come. Their goal for the night of the event is to “entertain” young audiences and Rijksmuseum does not focus on “[drawing] people to come and see the

exhibition”

The benefits for Rijksmuseum goes back to their reason to participate which is for visitors that “wouldn’t come on a normal day” (appendix 1) to visit the museum and hopefully come back.

Through this event, they do realize their goals for young nationals to visit their museum that otherwise would not come.

When asked about the disadvantages in being part of the event, Rijksmuseum explains there are not really downsides. They explain that though it costs money to organize the different aspects of the event and they do not make a lot of profit, the amount of people coming in and possibly buying a ticket in the future balances it out.

5.1.b NEMO Science Museum

The reason and goal for NEMO’s participation stems from realizing their mission to “make

everybody in The Netherlands more excited about science” (appendix 2) by targeting a different

audience. They explain that their target audience consists of families, kids between the ages of 6 and 12 accompanied by their guardians. Their target audience limits them as they want their museum to be inclusive and for everybody, but young adults are “hesitant […] visiting a museum

that is full of kids” and so it is a “great opportunity for NEMO to actually change the target group for one night”.

NEMO finds that the benefits of participating in museumnacht is the visits from the target group that they don’t normally get, young audiences. Furthermore, gaining a “new target audience […]

really contributes to [their] brand” (appendix 2) because different age groups take the museums

more seriously if future exhibitions or events organized by the museums become available. The previous experience from museumnacht will give them merit to organize something similar themselves, as they’ve already shown they “can and […] are capable”.

NEMO describes museumnacht as a cultural value in itself, all the activities are specific for the youths of Amsterdam, they explain the discussion that take place during the night and how engaged people were on serious topics. It’s maybe something museums “lack”, that little bit of attraction that is not for them specifically. Furthermore, they say that museumnacht “adds

21 A recent disadvantage NEMO acknowledge was last year having 10,000 visitors might have been an unpleasant experience and was also difficult for the staff of the museum because of the sheer size of visitors. It could also affect the visitor’s experience of the museum and can affect the museum’s ability to reach that target group again.

Furthermore, they mentioned that visitors of museumnacht might not be taking advantage of the extra ticket they receive from museumnacht to stimulate another visit to a museum of their choice.

5.1.c Tropen Museum

Similar to previous results, Tropen’s goal and reason for participation originates in targeting younger audiences through this event because “it’s so hard to get them to museums” (appendix 3). They focus on getting a new target group to the museum with the hope that they will come back. They further explained that participating gets them “a lot of exposure and that every

museum in Amsterdam participates so you cannot not do it”.

They see the benefits that a lot of people visit their museum during museumnacht and get the exposure of the exhibition that is present at that moment. Tropen focuses their program for

museumnacht around the exhibition and so visitors learn more about it. Visitors not only visit the

museum, but they also get “exposure of an exhibition” (appendix 3), which is their focus. Furthermore, they mentioned that participating “frames” the museum to be interesting for

younger audiences as the marketing for museumnacht is automatically connected to the museum.

Tropen does not see a lot of disadvantages in participating, they claim “it’s a lot of work” but they “don’t think there are” any disadvantages. But they said that the “difficult thing is that [the

young visitors] only come for museumnacht because they see it as an event” (appendix 3).

Another interesting point of view that could be seen as negative with museumnacht participation is the opinion that museumnacht is getting more controversial, with the focus on getting as many visitors as possible on that night “and not really showing what the museum is like”. The opinion continues to say that museums should be careful that museumnacht should be used to present the museum and their exhibitions and not to give visitors an experience that will deter them from coming again due to the sheer difference of the experience. They also mentioned that the

controversial programs are for exposure from newspaper or to get on the top 10 list of

museumnacht.

5.1.d Power of Art House

Power of Art House is a cultural organization that took part in museumnacht as a guest location. Their reason and goal in the participation is to “introduce [the organization] to a bigger

audience” (appendix 4). They explain that their initiative is new, small, and not open every day

so it is nice to get the exposure. Their main goal was to get as much new visitors to follow them on social media, visit the organization and possibly donate.

When asked what the benefits to partaking, they said that they don’t have any figures to see if their goals of getting more people to know them and visit, maybe donate or follow them on social media was actually realized. The night itself was very busy but “it’s not the case that since

then [they] have more donations or more visitors” (appendix 4) so they are not sure if they had

many benefits after the night itself. But they did say that when they are at the organization, they hear some people talk about their visit during museumnacht but nothing concrete to really show any benefits were found.

No disadvantages were seen for partaking in museumnacht for this organization. There were costs but they also said that as a small organization doing anything can be difficult. Furthermore, they explained that it was worth it because of the amount of people that came and visited that would not have come were it not for the event. As a guest location, they can only participate in

museumnacht once and they do not have to pay a fee, and because they did not have to pay for a

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Chapter 6: Analysis

After sifting through the results and analyzing the data, this chapter will present what the investigation of this subject found. The focus of this analysis, the answer to the question of this paper, will be presented in section 6.1. Though this is the focus of this investigation, further analysis was done to find similarities and differences encountered by the varying museums to further understand museumnacht as a case study. The results from 6.2 will be organized by themes found in the analysis phase.

6.1 Cultural value creation through museumnacht

The research question of this study is How can participating in museumnacht add cultural value for partaking museums in Amsterdam? With this question in mind, when analyzing the data from the interviews, the main theme found was to introduce art and culture to those who wouldn’t be introduced otherwise.

Rijksmuseum uses this event to “bring art and culture into the mind of younger people”

(appendix 1), giving them the opportunity to take part in the cultural industry by giving them an event attractive for them. NEMO explains that this event is a way for younger visitors to feel they can belong in their museums instead of being surrounded by families and kids. They explain that perhaps this group of visitors needed the push to be part of the cultural industry, during the event many serious discussions took places with the visitors engaging deeply in serious subjects. Tropen’s program is focused around their exhibition during the event bringing exposure and teaching younger visitors about it. Furthermore, Tropen talks about the other activities in

museumnacht such as cooking classes or sword dancers giving these visitors more to learn.

Power of Art House further confirms this notion of introducing a group to art and culture explaining that during this event, the visitors don’t need to be interested in art to come to these cultural organizations and take part.

In this sense, Museumnacht was a medium that museums and cultural organizations used to increase their visitors embodied cultural capital. By giving this target group the space to enjoy and delve into art and culture in a way that attracts them, they take part in the cultural

consumption that other visitors of museums do on a normal day. In the interviews, they focused on their visitors when it came to this event because it is one of the only ways in Amsterdam for museums to attract a target group they could not. But does this mean it adds cultural value for museums?

Out of all participants, NEMO said that museumnacht is a cultural “thing” itself and it adds cultural value to museums by “reaching new people” (appendix 2) and is a cultural value for those visitors. But looking at the data obtained in during this investigation from all museums, it suggests that there is not enough evidence to confirm that this event adds cultural value for museums.

6.2 Understanding museumnacht

This section will discuss the interesting points that were discovered after analyzing the data. Though it is not part of the research question, it contributes to the understanding of museumnacht for museums.

6.2.a The dilemma: Visitors vs Exhibition

An interesting point brought up in the interview with Tropen is the contrast of a museum’s exhibition and their program for museumnacht. It is prevalent especially for museums whose focus is on visitor number instead of reaching new audiences to spread their exhibition. The competition between the museums during this event drives them to have more “controversial” programs to get on the “list of 10 places you should go” (appendix 3). The cluster of museums around the city is also a factor that drives these more controversial programs to entice visitors to choose their museum even if it is not in the best spot in Amsterdam where there are big museums around. This leads to the focus of museumnacht not on the museum and its exhibition, but only on the program.

When discussing this point of view with Rijksmuseum, they don’t see this as a potentially negative aspect of the event. They believe that the contrast is a “good thing” because they are able to have that difference. Rijksmuseum’s focus during the event is to “entertain” (appendix 1) and introduce art and culture, their exhibition being a secondary aspect of the night. Their reason

25 for this is because they already have a target audience that visit the museum for the exhibition, so they use this event in a different way with a different visitor group.

When looking at these two points of views, a main difference is the focus and goal of the event. When looking at the data, the largest museum and the smallest cultural organization do not focus on their exhibition during this event. Smaller museums or organizations focus on visitor reach as this is a good opportunity for them to increase their visitors, large museums don’t need to increase their visitor numbers and already have a significant number of visitors that go to their museums for the exhibition itself. Though both have explained the goal to introduce art and culture to their visitors, data suggests it is secondary. Thus, they do not focus on their exhibition but on their visitors. But medium sized museums use this opportunity to not only widen their visitor reach but to also spread their exhibition.

6.2.b Benefits and Disadvantages of participating in museumnacht

When analyzing the interview data, two themes emerged pertaining to benefits and

disadvantages. For each of the museums, there was no evidence of museumnacht helping to achieve their goal for young visitors to come to their museums after the event. They all mentioned their goal not only for the night but also for after and none of them had any knowledge if that goal was realized. There was a similar opinion that the visitors of

museumnacht might only be interested in the event itself. So, other than the benefit of the night

itself, it did not do much for their everyday practice.

When focusing on the lack of evidence of benefits, the museum’s opinion that these young visitors come to the museums for the event could be the answer. NEMO mentions that this is a space for them to come and visit the museums most catered for them and so there is no reason for young visitors to visit on a normal day when this event was created. To appreciate the benefits that the museums see on museumnacht, perhaps making this event more frequently will lead to a steadier visitation from this target group. Power of Art House being a guest location and not being able to have a recurring role in museumnacht might be the reason they do not see any benefits either. Their visitor group from that event will be the only one they were exposed to and so their visitor reach is limited, relative to the museums, after this event.

Additionally, there were no disadvantages found in participating in the event for all museums. Rijksmuseum mentioned that they do not make a profit from this but that it is still worth it. Both NEMO and Tropen did not have any disadvantages either in their participation. Interestingly, Power of Art House stated that perhaps if they were a museum and they would have to pay the fee to participate then the costs might outweigh the benefits solely on an economic standpoint from being such a small organization.

The lack of disadvantages especially when it comes to larger museums such as Rijksmuseum, NEMO, and Tropen can be appointed to their economic viability. They all focused on the benefits of exposure of their exhibitions and introducing a target group to cultural consumption, then the fee to take part in the event. For Power of Art House, their lack of disadvantages could be attributed to them being a guest location and not having to pay a fee. They can then focus on the event itself and have the museumnacht organizers introduce it for them.

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Chapter 7: Conclusion

The importance of museums is seen in how it educates public on important historical and present cultural artifacts. To ensure a wide variety of visitors go to museums, a different approach is taken in the recent years to accommodate the changing environment. Competition and financial viability driving museums to become more visitor minded, they’ve focused on business traits to attract visitors. Cultural value being a museum’s main priority, it was interesting to research whether an event in Amsterdam that attracts a new group of visitors adds to the museum in that way. Themes surrounding the questions were analyzed and an interesting concept of

controversial programs to entice visitors was found. The dilemma between focusing on number of visitors versus the showcasing of exhibition was an interesting concept. Furthermore, the benefits of young visitors were only seen during the night and not in everyday practice, but there were also no disadvantages in participating. The analysis of the data concludes that there was not enough evidence to prove that museumnacht adds cultural value to museums. But, one of the museums did explain that museumnacht does add cultural value which leads the investigation to discuss the limitation and weakness surrounding this study.

7.1 Managerial and Academic Contribution

The purpose of this study was to further understand how cultural value can be cultivated for museums, and perhaps other cultural organization. The intention of this investigation is to contribute to academic research and to be used in practice for museum management.

For museum management and professionals in this industry, this study has shown that using a different strategy that could be seen as non-tradition can still cultivate cultural value for their visitors. For museums that have a focus on increasing cultural consumption of a wide variety of visitors can implement this type of event that is more catered toward a group instead of using a “one fits all” strategy.

Concerning the academic contribution of this study, findings show that museumnacht increase the embodied cultural capital of young visitors that would not have been increased otherwise. It also contributes to the investigation on how to broaden a museum’s visitor demographic by

showing that catering to visitors wants and needs will entice them to come to their museums. This research contributed to the understanding of motivation of practice in the museums of Amsterdam and how other museums can benefit. Further research on cultural value and its tension with business in museums will be needed to fully understand this topic.

7.2 Limitations and weaknesses

It is important to discuss the limitations and weaknesses of a study to allow for research and findings of this study to be evaluated properly. Concerning the limitations and weaknesses of this investigation, it mainly pertains to the inexperience of the researcher. In regard to obtaining data, the planning was poor as the employees that were interviewed may not have been in the position to focus on the cultural value of the event as their positions drove them to focus on the business aspect. When speaking to different employees in different positions, the goal of the event and the actual benefits realized might have been different and could have answered the question of this study better.

Secondly, the interview and the process leading up to it could have been better prepared. The questions asked might not have given this study the actual data needed to answer the question itself. Inexperience in knowing what was appropriate to ask while not leading the interviewee to the answers this study needs was present during the interviews and when creating questions. This led to only one museum discussing the concept of cultural value concerning museumnacht, which suggests that this study did not have the full picture of the perspective and experience of the other museums concerning its cultural value.

7.3 Personal gains

I am a different academic now than I was when I embarked on this exploration. I have learnt a lot about conducting an academic qualitative investigation and will be able to use this skill in my future. Additionally, this research has given me more knowledge of the cultural industry, specifically museums, and has driven me in that direction for my future.

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7.4 Further research

This topic deserves further investigation as I was unable to acquire a small museum’s

perspective. Information I received from one of the interviewees who has worked in other small museums was given but it was not enough to analyze. In my future research, a more thorough investigation with a better interviewing skill will help find a more accurate picture of this case study.

One of my interviewees, with past professional experience in small museums, provided some interesting information about them. According to her, museumnacht is really helpful for small museums because it increased their visitor numbers which makes a difference, even if it is only one night. Furthermore, small museums, with small budgets, benefit from having an external organization like museumnacht doing marketing for them, so they can focus on the actual event. They don’t have to allocate money on marketing which would not have been on as big of a scale as it is with museumnacht anyway. Additionally, controversial programs for museumnacht is even more prominent for small museums, wanting to get more exposure and have visitors choose your small museum over other museums. To entice visitors, and to be the choice of the night, their programs need to be more interesting than other museums which could lead to more controversial programs that are disconnected from their museums. This is an extremely interesting perspective for this case study that warrants future research.

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Appendix

(1) Transcription of Interview: Rijksmuseum

Interviewer: Ok let’s start with the first question which is why did Rijksmuseum decide to take part in museum night?

Rijksmuseum: Umm, well because it is just a great event to umm.. I have to do this in english instead of dutch so my answers are going to take a little longer than usual haha

Interviewer: haha it’s okay

Rijksmuseum: It’s just a great event to bring young people to culture and museums in general because most of our visitors are tourists or people that are very cultural loving or people that are a little bit older like 50/55 plus and most of the time the young people, they’re not really

interested in museums, it’s just yeah, you know what its like? It’s just art is boring and um thats what most people think. So the museum night was meant for us to really target the young people and yeah get them to our museum

Interviewer: right so was the goal of taking part in museum night to target younger audiences then?

Rijksmuseum: younger national audience yes

Interviewer: Why is it important for rijksmuseum to do that?

Rijksmuseum: Yeah just like i said we really want to bring art and culture into the mind of younger people, because we do it in schools so its like until 18 years but after that we kind of lose them so between 18 i would say and 30 we dont really have a particular marketing strategy to market that target group so the museum night is the event for us to get them to our museum and hopefully they come back after that for other events that we organize

Interviewer: Do you guys usually target a different audience when its not museum night? Rijksmuseum: Yeah we do yeah we mostly really focus on international tourists so and our high season is actually right now so from about start of march until i would say september and then in the winter we also always have an exhibition so we also target tourists but mostly also cultural lovers, so in dutch we call them (not sure how it is spelled) not sure what the english word would be but i guess it would be culture lovers

Interviewer: Like uh the cultural consumer basically?

Rijksmuseum: Yeah i guess that would be what we would call them, and i must say i know that van gogh museum and stedelijk museum which are biggest competitors i would say they really do target the young people better than we are doing right now and im not sure why our focus is

not on that age group, but right now we’re just focusing more on the tourists, the schools, and the cultural consumers.

Interviewer: Do you think in the future rijksmuseum will target younger audiences?

Rijksmuseum: I hope so, i hope so because they’re the future you know? I mean we do target really young like kids i would say like i just said through the schools below 18 they are actually the future so i hope that they will of course become the new youngsters the new 18-35 so i hope i a few years they will come back to us and we do organize a few events here and there but in my opinion its not enough yet but i think its also has to do with the fact that our exhibitions are just not for, they’re really focused on the cultural art lovers and we just want to sell tickets and share the art as much as we can so thats why when we do spend money on marketing we just want to focus on the people who are really gonna come to the exhibitions.

Interviewer: Is that more like on a business standpoint or a cultural value standpoint?

Rijksmuseum: I would say a little bit of both but i think business as well because of course as you know our money is subsidized so we have a lot of sponsors and they also want their money to be going to the place they want, they would like to see it go if you know what i mean? So that are all things that we have to take in account when we spend our marketing budget on certain events or certain marketing campaigns.

Interviewer: Does rijksmuseum have any like pressure or external forces that want you guys to focus more on younger audiences?

Rijksmuseum: Umm i wouldn’t know actually thats a question i find hard to answer because we have so many departments so many colleagues that i have you know we work with 800 people at the rijksmuseum we have a lot of staff, 400 on the floor and 400 in the offices so yeah and you know my function is as junior marketing manager so i can only answer the questions to that extent but i would say this question is too hard for me to answer

Interviewer: Thats okay! Let’s just go back to more museum night questions like how is it beneficial for your organization? Like what type of benefits do you guys see?

Rijksmuseum: People who’ve never been to rijksmuseum before are more likely to come, so if your living here and you were born here and you’ve never been or only been with school a few years ago, you probably won’t go to rijksmuseum on a random day you’d rather go to the park or go out to dinner, hang out with friends but museum night is really an opportunity for those people who wouldnt come on a normal day to come to the rijksmusuem and hopefully come back another day cause they like dit so much or tell their friends how fun it was

Interviewer: Do you guys see any disadvantages to taking part in museum night?

Rijksmuseum: I have to think about that for a second.. Well i would say no, it does cost a lot of money to organize it because you have to arrange uh food, djs, staff, everything. And of course the tickets they don’t buy tickets at our museum, they buy tickets at museumnacht organization

35 um so i would say that would be a downside but on the other hand the fact that there are so many people coming to the museum and maybe come back and buy a ticket another time, that just balances it out.

Interviewer: So you guys don’t make any profit from this? None of the money goes to you guys? Rijksmuseum: No i dont think so, no im not quite sure if it does but i don’t think so actually. But i think you should ask the museumnacht organization maybe if they give an x percentage of the ticket sales to the museums im not quite sure but i do know that we do not make a lot of money on it for sure.

Interviewer: There is also this one like i was talking to another museum about this and they felt a disadvantage was like museum night they said every year its getting more and more how would you say like not, maybe this is the best word like scandalous with the programs and stuff its a bit more like i dont remember what the word she used but like it didnts really fit with what the museums exhibition was about do you feel like thats a bad thing in rijksmuseum?

Rijksmuseum: Umm i dont think its bad for us because im not sure what museum you talked to who said that but because we are so large we have the advantage of being you very diverse and very blendable and i know that we also have our own themes every year so last year we had uh i think it was all females so everything was around the female person and women and go women um so we always do our own theme and whatever the museum night decide or does we dont partake in that always as a whole so yeah i wouldn’t say that would be a downside for us Interviewer: Interesting, maybe the museum didn’t really have, they did choose their own programmes though so im not really sure how she says it doesn’t fit with her- the exhibition, i think it was that juxtaposition of just either your talking about the female body or sex which is a good topic when it comes to young people and then in the background its this like exhibition of i dont know like in rijksmuseum the masters so its like that difference but i think thats pretty cool actually

Rijksmuseum: Yeah me too i think its a good thing that we can have that difference and that balance and that you know and people dont have to come to the exhibition on museum night that is not our main goal we just want to entertain people and give them fun things to do and show them around a bit and if there happens to be an exhibition on of course they are free to see it but for us.. (cut out).. Focus on people who visit our exhibitions on our regular marketing campaigns strongly so for the museum night it’s not so important for us to draw people to come and see the exhibition

Interviewer: Yeah okay umm, i think thats everything really, is there any other point that i haven’t covered that you think might be important for me to know?

Rijksmuseum: I dont think so, no i think you got it all covered and uh if you have more interviews like this will be able to answer all your questions your thesis questions good so.

(2) Transcription of Interview: NEMO Science Museum

Interviewer: I have 5 main questions that i want to explore and lets just start with why did NEMO decide to take part in museum night?

NEMO: can i ask you one question beforehand? Interviewer: Yeah sure

NEMO: Did you visit the museum night in Amsterdam?

Interviewer: No i didnt, actually i wasn’t able to take part this year which was really sad NEMO: Ah okay so but you know the concept and the target audience and stuff like that? Interviewer: Yeah

NEMO: Okay good, well so NEMO is a science museum mostly uh we say families but you might say kids you know because the people that are usually there are kids between the ages of 6 and 12 with their parents or grandparents so that limits us a little bit in the target audience like we want to be for everybody but as like more grown up adults between your 20s and 30s you might feel a little bit hesitant about visiting a museum that is full of kids because you dont feel like you belong there. So with this museum night its a great opportunity for nemo to actually change the target group for one night so kids are not really allowed, the target group is from 18 plus, 18 to 35. So by participating in this event we basically get a target audience that would never visit our museum. And the funny thing is that we think its for kids and they think its for kids but during this night they go all out you know, they love standing in the soap bubbles that we have like an exhibition where you pour a soap bubble around you and thats it, thats all there is to it and the grown ups they love it you know so its really nice to see, its like a playground for adults at that time. So yeah its basically as nemo we have a mission to make everybody in the netherlands more excited about science and teknik? And that means everybody so by

participating in museum night we contribute to our mission.

Interviewer: So just to like say it again, what is the goal of being in museum night, was it to for your mission? Is that what the goal was?

NEMO: Yes, so making everybody excited about science also means different age groups so getting a new age group to the museum

Interviewer: So was it actually beneficial when you to take part in museum night for nemo? NEMO: Yes, very like every year we see, uh a little bit depending on the activities we do, but we see that the target group 18 to 35 actively visits, last night we had an all time record of 10,000 people in one night.