As summer is approaching, the popularity of museum visits continues to rise. Cultural and museum institutions, including the Palace Museum and the National Museum of China, have recently attracted public attention due to the difficulty of making reservations for visits. The Office of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage issued a special notice on the evening of July 14, requesting that in improving the reservation mechanism, we must avoid "one size fits all", appropriately increase the number of tickets sold or the number of reservations, and reserve telephone reservations and offline ticket purchase channels.

With the opening of special exhibitions such as "Exhibition of Ancient Books from the Song and Yuan Dynasties Collected by Shanghai Museum" and "Songze·Liangzhu Civilization Archeology Special Exhibition", the Shanghai Museum has recently ushered in the peak of summer visits. Aiming at how to alleviate the "difficulty in making appointments" and how to meet the audience's needs for exhibition explanations, the Shanghai Expo has also released new regulations for visiting. The museum also appeals to the audience to do their "homework" before visiting, and to make full use of free guide resources and diversified guide services during the visit, which can make visiting the exhibition more meaningful.

Move your fingers and give up the seats to the audience in need

It is reported that the Shanghai Museum currently has a daily visitor quota of 10,000, and will add a night show with a quota of 2,000 people every Friday from July 7 to August 20. From June 20th to October 8th, the Shanghai Museum implements an all-reservation system for admission. Individual visitors can make reservations 7 days in advance, and group visits must make group reservations 7-14 days in advance. According to statistics, since the opening of "Empirical China" on June 20, more than 160,000 visitors have visited Shanghai Expo in more than 20 days.

On July 14, at the entrance of the Shanghai Museum, the audience lined up to enter the museum in an orderly manner

Compared with some popular cultural and museum venues in Beijing, which are "difficult to make reservations", "difficult to buy tickets" and even "difficult to get a ticket", the museum officials said that although the number of reservations for the Shanghai Museum is also very tight, especially on weekends, as long as citizens can advance Do a good job of travel planning and make reservations in advance, and it is basically impossible to miss the appointment.

"We have a daily quota of 10,000 visitors. From statistics, we found that the actual number of people attending the day show is about 7,000, of which about 20% of the quota may be wasted. If the audience who cannot visit as scheduled can cancel the appointment in advance, this Part of the quota can be dynamically released within 7 appointment periods per day." Tang Shifen, Secretary of the Party Committee of the Shanghai Museum, said, therefore, she appealed to those who could not attend the appointment to remember to cancel the appointment in time and give up the visiting places to those who need them.

In the exhibition hall of Shanghai Museum, the audience watches the exhibition site

As Shanghai is a popular tourist city, there are also many tourists who come to Shanghai from other places and fail to make an appointment in advance or pass by Shanghai Expo temporarily to visit the museum. They often wait anxiously outside the museum because they cannot make an appointment. The museum also warmly reminds this Some viewers can pay attention to the reservation platform in time, refresh the reservation platform intermittently, and still have the opportunity to swipe the remaining tickets that are dynamically released.

It is reported that this time the museum has also introduced new regulations for the first time to take corresponding "punishment" measures against the audience who failed to cancel the appointment twice, and their account will be frozen within 30 days.

On the night of May 7th, the team outside the exhibition hall of the Shanghai Museum's "Treasures from the British National Gallery". (Data map)

As an ordinary audience or cultural and museum lover, while requiring cultural and museum venues to provide high-quality services and create a good viewing experience, it is also the responsibility to contribute. Cancel appointments in time, so that more people can enjoy high-quality public cultural resources.

Pay attention to the elderly group and properly reserve offline visiting channels

Since many venues are mostly booked through mobile phones or the Internet, in fact, some elderly audiences and primary and middle school students are often restricted. The July 14 notice from the Office of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage also required that museums in various places should adapt measures to local conditions, make scientific research and judgments, reasonably implement mechanisms such as reservations, flow limits, and peak shifts, optimize and adjust the ticket reservation system, and avoid "one size fits all." It is necessary to further optimize the reservation process, unblock the reservation channels, reserve telephone reservations, offline ticket purchase channels, etc., to meet the reservation needs of different groups such as primary and secondary school students, the elderly, and the disabled.

As described in some previous media reports, many tourists have experienced the difficulty of making reservations and grabbing tickets for tourist attractions and cultural museums these days. On social platforms, tourists from other places reported that "they didn't get a ticket when they came", and some people in the industry joked that "Beijing tourism practitioners have become 'machines' for ticket grabbing". Due to the different reservation and release times for each scenic spot, there are still "ticket grabbing calendars" circulating on the Internet, which accurately remind the specific ticket grabbing time... But "the tickets for the National Expo are sold out in 3 minutes" and "travel agencies persuade you to return because there are no tickets for the scenic spots Tourists" and other situations are still frequently seen on the Internet.

"All the appointment system is implemented. Although the operation is easy and convenient for most people, it is equivalent to a new threshold for the elderly who are not familiar with the Internet." Venues, consumers’ behavior of “making an appointment first and then talking” exists to varying degrees. At this time, not only should the no-show tickets be backfilled into the ticket pool in time, but also a good calculation and evaluation should be done, and the amount of tickets released should be appropriately increased according to the proportion of no-show tickets.

According to the staff of Suzhou Museum’s Public Education Department, in 2022, 73,630 visitors over the age of 60 will enter the museum, accounting for 5.34% of the total. The Suzhou Museum specially launched the "Wen Teng Blossoms, Fraternity and Sunset" - an elderly-friendly museum service project. "Through this project, we want to promote the overall improvement of the museum's age-appropriate service level, so that elderly audiences can enjoy higher-quality public cultural services."

It is reported that as early as December 2020, the Suzhou Museum issued an announcement on the adjustment of the preferential treatment policy for the elderly to visit. According to this policy, seniors over 60 years old do not need to make an appointment to visit the Suzhou Museum, and they can enter the museum after completing verification at the entrance gate with a valid ID card.

This approach for elderly audiences is undoubtedly worthy of reference by many museums.

Suzhou Museum exhibition site

Suzhou Museum exhibition site

Take advantage of free and diverse guided tours

After the Palace Museum, the National Museum of China and other cultural and museum institutions have successively issued notices on regulating the order of explanations in the museum, the Shanghai Expo also issued new regulations a few days ago, stipulating that without the permission of the museum, no unit or individual can lead a team to give explanations in the museum. Teaching and other activities; if units or individuals really need to carry out explanation activities in the library due to work, they need to report to Shanghai Bo for approval.

Shanghai Museum "Empirical China" exhibition site

With the upsurge of museum visits and studies, some "industries" attached to cultural museums are also in full swing, such as some scalpers "hoarding tickets", and some "advertising" on social media for paid explanations of museums. The minimum is 88 yuan, and the maximum is one or two hundred yuan.

"We have not authorized any third party to provide profit-making explanation services." The museum said that these explanation services are mixed, and some people's information is more accurate, but some people talk about it with unverified "legends" and "unofficial history". To attract everyone, it is easy to mislead the public. At the same time, there are also some explainers who directly use the banner of "Shanghai Expo", which has a bad impact on the reputation of the museum.

"Walking with the Times - Jinshi Transmission Technology" special exhibition exhibition site

In this regard, Tang Shifen said that Shanghai Expo provides diversified and multi-level guided tour services for the audience. Among them are free WeChat guides, as well as paid smart guides and audio guides, covering permanent exhibitions and special exhibitions. She appealed to the audience to do some "homework" before visiting the exhibition, and to make full use of Shanghai Bo's free guide resources and diversified and multi-level guide services during the exhibition, so as to make visiting the museum more enjoyable. Significant.

Free WeChat guide on Shangbo (screenshot)

Shanghai Museum’s free WeChat tour guides are written by professional researchers from the Shanghai Museum and recorded audio explanations. The audience only needs to use WeChat to scan the QR code on the explanatory board to obtain text introductions, pictures, audio explanations and other information of key cultural relics. Smart guides use tablets as carriers to help audiences understand the background of cultural relics and interpret historical treasures through voice explanations, video introductions, hand-drawn stories, animation analysis, and game interaction. The current content includes explanations of 79 pieces of cultural relics of the permanent exhibition of Shanghai Expo and explanations of the special exhibition of "Empirical China". The content of the traditional audio explanation covers the permanent exhibition hall and the special exhibitions of "Empirical China" and "Jade Chu Liufang". A set of equipment can listen to all the exhibitions of Shanghai Expo.

How can museums better meet the needs of visitors?

In view of the fact that many museums in China have issued intensive notices on regulating the order of explanations in the museums, some viewers expressed their support, hoping to return the museums to a clean exhibition environment.

Tourists visiting an exhibition in the National Museum

At present, with the improvement of the public's aesthetic ability and the increasing popularity of cultural relics knowledge, audiences have higher and higher requirements for the in-depth experience of visiting museums and the depth and professionalism of knowledge acquisition. Many audiences are not satisfied with staying in the In terms of information acquisition at a shallow level, especially for some important exhibitions and special exhibitions that the museum has painstakingly planned, it is understandable to hope that more in-depth interpretations and explanations can be obtained.

The children's study group visited the exhibition of the Shanghai Museum (data map)

Some cultural and cultural experts said frankly that whether it is a parent-child family who is keen on research or a cultural and cultural enthusiast who has accumulated a certain amount of knowledge, the audience has a strong demand for explanations, and the contradiction between supply and demand exists objectively, which is why some social explanations have room for survival . "Some popular cultural and museum venues do not have sufficient resources for explanations, and how to balance the maintenance of museum visiting order and open explanations has been a problem for a long time, but it will explode more sharply during the holidays."

There is a point of view that the emergence of "museum craze" in recent years is inseparable from the extensive participation of the public, and it is not advisable to simplify and prohibit interaction. "As a public cultural dissemination institution, the greatest charm of the museum lies in its publicity and openness. Relevant people in the society who do have corresponding knowledge reserves, as long as they do not provide explanation services, as long as they do not affect the normal order of the museum, it is not impossible to be there" Express personal opinions on the basis of distorting historical facts." There are also views that, when the resources for explanations are not very "rich", let the "power of social explanations" that can speak and be good at speaking pass a certain threshold and play in accordance with laws and regulations. Auxiliary role is undoubtedly worth encouraging.