Visiting a museum or an exhibition is very simple and involves you walking around viewing the various pieces that are on display and in some cases listening to the curator explaining about the history and significance for each piece or exhibit being presented.
Basically, any institution you have public access goes about things in almost the exact same way and over the years we are all used to having things done this way.
Headaches at the museum
But the museums and institutions face a lot of challenges doing things this old fashion way, top of their list of concerns is for the artworks, exhibitions and historical pieces on display themselves. In most cases, these things are fragile and can easily break or be damaged when in contact with foreign elements including us visitors.
Each time you have a large group of people taking a tour, the maintenance team and security personnel are always on edge making sure nothing gets damaged intentionally or unintentionally with some going as far as placing bullet-proof glass between the items and the visitor just as a precaution.
Other instances have seemed museums and institutions creating replicas of the original works to place on display to combat this issue.
Wait there’s more
Yet the issues don’t just end there, they also have to be cautious of being able to represent the full details on each piece or exhibit while keeping the interest of the visitors, and this is not as easy as it sounds.
This usually involves having a good enough curator to be able to wow and entrance the visitors while giving all the relevant facts about the piece or exhibit.
VR Museum: A New World
Then came Virtual Reality and Augmented reality hardware and applications.
This opened a whole new world to museums and institutions all over the world. Now not only can VR museums engage visitors in a more creative way by offering virtual tours and interactive experience, but they can also reduce the risk of damage to the expensive and sometimes priceless works of art on exhibit.
The Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, The National Museum of Finland, The Smithsonian Institution and London’s Tate Modern are just a few that have taken and implemented the VR experience within their walls and online.
Visit from anywhere
This is to say that in some cases, you don’t actually have to leave your home to grain the full museum experience and can learn in an interactive environment where ever you are.
This not only increases the number of visitors that each museum and institution can generate but also creates a reusable resource that allows the subject matter to be explored over and over again without additional cost.
This is also more appealing to the younger audience to get them interested and hold their attention when talking about historical or aged content.
Plus one very key advantage is that they don’t have to worry about thieves stealing the artworks. This might sound like a funny line but annual insurance for some of the more expensive exhibitions and artworks can go into the millions of dollars.
So while it may be a very good tool to create and engage visitor awareness, it also helps save a lot of money.
