The document discusses best practices for managing the opening process of a new museum or expanded museum space, including creating a transition team, developing a comprehensive schedule, setting priorities, managing budgets and expectations, communicating effectively, and celebrating milestones. Speakers provide examples from their experiences opening new museum spaces and discuss both what went well and challenges faced.
2. From Construction Site to Museum:
Managing the Opening Process
•Judy Gradwohl, Associate Director for Public
Programs, National Museum of American History
•James Volkert, Principal, Exhibition Associates
•Dana Allen-Greil, New Media Project
Manager, National Museum of American History
•Susan Leidy, Deputy Director, Currier Museum of
Art
•Elaine Gurian, Senior Consultant, Principal, Elaine
Heumann Gurian LLC
5. Create a transition team
• Draw from throughout the museum
• Make the team “dissolvable”
6. The architects don’t do all the work
• List your tasks
• Learn to read plans
• Learn their language
7. Its not business as usual
• The systems you have may not be adequate
• Develop a Day One list
• Establish a comprehensive schedule
• Link schedules and budgets by task, not departments
8. The systems you have may not be adequate
• You are set up to run a museum, not build a project
• Fix the things that don’t work
12. Be courageous in decision-making
• Push decisions down • Make decisions public
• Document the decisions • Change the process if it
• Make the process transparent doesn’t work
23. FULL
CRITICAL LIMITED
Funded: $0
Funded: $X,059,000* Funded: $X48,000
Shortfall: $XXX,000
Exhibitions: Shortfall: $XXX,000
• Star-Spangled Banner Public Spaces and Amenities:
• Artifact Walls and Landmark Objects Exhibitions:
• Wayfinding signs outside central core
• Price of Freedom • Customer service training for front-line staff • Timeline
• First Ladies & The American • Family Guide for print and Web
Presidency • Welcome Center staffing Public Spaces and Amenities:
• Music, Sports, and Entertainment • Museum fully furnished • Reprinting wayfinding signs
• Invention At Play • Security check and queuing furniture • Furniture for Board Room and
• America on the Move • Outdoor signs and banners Director’s suite
• Julia Child’s Kitchen • Visitor flow planning • Bike rack
• Within These Walls • Carmichael Auditorium
• Hands On Science Center • Reception Suite carpet Opening Events and Outreach:
• Lighting a Revolution Opening Events and Outreach: • Star-Spangled Banner books
• Power Machinery Hall • Design and printing of press materials • Video news release
• Lunch Boxes • Ad buys • White House luncheon
• Communities in a Changing Nation • Satellite and radio media tours • Behring Dinner
• Gunboat Philadelphia • Public Relations assistance • Web promotion for reopening
• Dolls’ House • Staff and volunteer preview
• SI Libraries Gallery • Marketing for special events
OPTIONAL EVENTS
• Science in American Life • Tourism and hospitality industry previews
Shortfall: $238,000
• Deinstall Treasures • Dedication ceremony
Public Spaces and Amenities: • Gala for major donors
• Exterior decoration and lighting
• Welcome Center • Congressional preview event
• Evening events for public opening
• LeFrak Lobby to Carmichael • Public opening event
• Marketing for reopening
Auditorium • Additional donor events
• Museum stores and food service • Event planners
• Furniture (minimal amount) • Conservation and graphics support
• Wayfinding signs within central core • Reopening contingency funds
• Transition zones
Opening Events and Outreach:
• B-roll taping
24. Manage your money and time
• Cut—don’t add
• Count everybody’s pennies
• If something isn’t working reconsider its value
41. Susan Leidy
Deputy Director
Currier Museum of Art
42. Expansion completed Nov. 2007;
Reopened March 2008
• 33,000 square feet
• $21.4 million cost, $14.5 million construction
• Ann Beha Architects, Boston, MA
• Harvey Construction Company, Bedford, NH
45. What we did well
1. Strategic Planning process identified what facility
improvements were needed:
• Galleries / exhibition space
• Visitor amenities
• Education / program space
46. What we did well
2. Cross-departmental planning for re-opening events