Do open day events develop art museum audiences?

Abstract

For museums, developing audiences means both attracting non-visitors to their venues, and improving repeat visitors’ attendance patterns and experience. Audience development strategies encourage museums to create open door events in order to deal with barriers preventing a wider audience from becoming their visitors, and to build stronger relationships with their current visitors. Satisfaction is expected to influence future buying decisions – i.e., intention to return and to recommend. Will a satisfying experience at a museum event improve event goers’ visiting patterns? This research aims to ascertain the effects of attending open day events on the development of art museum audiences. We present the findings of exploratory quantitative research using the personal interview survey method. Our results indicate that open day events have potential to develop audiences, as such events eliminate attendance barriers, attract first time visitors and provide trial experiences for potential museum visitors. However, the positive association between event experience and intention to return to the museum on an ordinary day was not statistically supported by this study.