Museums and galleries are entering a new era of bold and provocative programming. Rosie Eagleton, events producer at Museums Sheffield, considers how cultural venues are repositioning themselves in order to attract emerging adult audiences

As the funding landscape for many cultural institutions looks less and less healthy, pressures on museum services to grow audiences, increase income and cultivate visitor giving have increased.

Many museums and galleries are seeking to redefine themselves as social venues in order to appeal to the upwardly mobile “emerging adult” audience. This new audience of tech-savvy, identity-seeking adults is shaping the future of the cultural sector and, in the age of digital competition and experiential desires, museums and galleries must respond and define their offer accordingly.

The sustainability and financial resilience of arts services may rely on tapping into this audience. Programming plays a central role in delivering these essential outcomes – event programmes can be profitable, widen participation and help to shore up our financial future.

Emerging adult audiences demand varied, inspiring and interactive programming. Museums cannot remain purely vaults of knowledge: they need to live, breathe and be part of the communities they serve. Although exhibitions and collections remain at the heart of the cultural offer, our spaces must emerge as inviting hubs of learning and community if they are to be relevant to the next generation.

Make, do and mingle
Cultural services are increasingly becoming “department stores” of culture. Audiences expect a menu of opportunities to engage with, from exhibitions and collections through to digital, social and online, events, networking, external community engagement, education and retail.

The often elusive emerging adult audience is typically aged 18 to 34, dynamic, often going through a period of change (jobs, romantic partners, relocation), with upward earning opportunity, few responsibilities and, critically, no children. These experience seekers are intentionally impressionable and looking to define their place in the world. The connections they make during these culturally formative years may well develop into lifelong relationships with the institutions they choose to champion.

The most successful institutions are always looking to the future – developing a sustainable programme of activity, cultivating donors and growing a culture of openness and invitation. Though there are myriad routes to engagement, science centres, art galleries and museums around the world are turning more frequently to evening programming to offer their emerging adults the opportunity to visit their venues out of hours for something more “grown up” – an opportunity to make, do and mingle.

Understand influencers
Museum Lates are on the rise in the UK, with Late Shift at London’s National Portrait Gallery and Science Museum Lates leading the pack. Museums Sheffield’s Live Lates are also developing a great reputation as an alternative Friday night out. Evening programmes offer an opportunity to visit the museum out of hours, a more practical and attractive timeframe for our emerging adult visitors who work during the day.

As a museum events and engagement professional, I’ve been developing a programme of Museum Lates over the past three years. From art gallery-based burlesque performances to ancient Egyptian “After Life” parties (complete with silent disco), evening events are just one way in which cultural organisations respond to the demands of new audiences.

Out of hours programming offers many benefits for both institution and audience. The institution can benefit from new, more diverse audiences, become more visibly visitor-facing as an organisation and explore more dynamic and reactive programming. Financially, events programmes can generate critical income and help foster a culture of giving in its visitors, which may translate into lifelong donors and advocates in the future.

Working alongside emerging adults allows us to understand who our community influencers are, which in turn opens up access to the pressing issues in the wider community and increases understanding of our audiences. The institution becomes a hub for access, learning, networking and community.

For the visitor, we offer dynamic, challenging and unique experiences in unusual venues. Events offer informal learning opportunities which can boost self-confidence and interpersonal skills, supporting attitudinal shifts arising from exploring difficult ideas and deeper social issues. Evening programming also offers social opportunities – meeting like-minded people, ownership of a shared civic space and a sense of being part of something bigger. Offering adult-only events gives implicit permission to the audience to “play”, an opportunity to remove inhibitions and engage more deeply with collections.

Embrace fandom
So with so many benefits and the opportunity to genuinely keep our finger on the pulse of current trends and social issues, what prevents organisations from jumping on the Lates bandwagon? For institutions, barriers come in the form of cost, risk and buy in. Often there is a fear of not knowing where to start, or a lack of staff or resources to be able to deliver. For audiences, barriers are less tangible; perceptions of museums services as “not for me” or elitist, lack of relevance or resonance with their day-to-day lives or simply too much competition.

How to get started? The choices you make about what’s on offer at your late event are crucial to its success. Let your audience drive the programming. Look to social media to find things that are relevant and resonate with the emerging adult audience; sometimes the most innovative, edgy or polarising topics will have the best outcomes. Don’t be afraid to jump on the current trends, embrace fandom or let partners contribute to the content. Evening programmes work best when they are themed. Look to exhibitions, pop culture or niche fandom for inspiration. Bringing different disciplines together will be more dynamic for visitors, so look at your theme from different approaches.

I visited Exploratorium in San Francisco, California, during a Thursday night adult-only After Dark events. The place was buzzing with groups, couples and singles anticipating an evening of fun, learning, eating and playing with the museum’s vast array of interactive science experiments.

Be authentic
After Dark is specifically targeted at casual visitors and emerging adults. The singular theme of the event – the week I went, the theme was Citrus – is explored through talks, activities and staff presentations and grounded in material and collections that are already on site. Cocktail bars are set up around the building and visitors are free to engage with any of the activities.

After Dark events average 2,500 visitors per month and the flagship events often sell out. I spoke to Melissa Alexander, director of public programming at the Exploratorium to find out why the After Dark sessions were so popular amongst the emerging adult demographic.

“These events are, and should be, all about the audience development and growing young learners into lifelong learners. A success is if someone goes home and reads something or Googles something,” Alexander says.

The events do turn a profit, though making money isn’t the principal goal of the series. Alexander stresses how important it is for an organisation to “be authentic to itself and give the audience a safe space to explore the difficult ideas on offer.”

The Exploratorium is an interactive, scientific playground. Evening events offer a level of exclusivity, a chance to explore, challenge your friends, laugh and learn through play. It offers the audience permissions that they may not feel during normal gallery opening hours when children take priority on the interactives and self-consciousness may reign.

“Our goal from these events is to develop self-efficacy, identity and interest and encourage lifelong learning,” says Josh Gutwill, director of visitor research and evaluation. “We want to empower people to make sense of the world themselves.” And what better way to learn than through play?

Explore the zeitgeist
Other organisations move away from evening activity grounded purely in its collections or exhibitions into the world of niche fandom and popular culture. It’s a polarising topic. Thought of by some as “jumping on a bandwagon” and moving away from the core mission statement of the organisation, for others “zeitgeist” events or appealing to “niche fandom” form core site programming.

“You don’t have to just be a museum,” says Heidi Reitmaier of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. “We can position ourselves as a cultural institution which discusses the zeitgeist, current trends and issues.”

Through furthering the notion of permission to play and exploring cross-disciplinary themes, institutions around the world – notably the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) in Seattle, Washington, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, California, and MCA Chicago – explore pop culture and current music trends, geek chic and mash-ups to engage their emerging adult audiences.

Marc Mayer, senior educator of contemporary art at the Asian Art Museum believes it’s all about leveraging modes of expression that are happening anyway: “It’s not filling a gap; it is of its time therefore relevant and necessary.”

MoPOP has an impressive collection of music, film, science fiction and fantasy memorabilia. From the Myth and Magic Fair to Dr Who’s 50th anniversary celebrations, the organisation attracts up to 3,000 visitors with its daytime programming. More interesting successes show an understanding of the emerging adult audience – the Fashionably Undead Prom Nightmare featured a Buffy the Vampire Slayer-themed murder mystery, appealing to the children of the 90s, while the Sound Off! Battle of the Bands competition taps into the musical vein of Seattle and is the flagship event.

The Asian Art Museum had considerable success programming their China’s Terracotta Warriors late-night launch event, holding an old-school mash-up party inspired by the China Terracotta Warriors and cult 70s movie, The Warriors. “Think greasy. Sweaty. Subterranean. Gritty. Neighbourhood mascots. Michael Jackson. You get the drift,” Meyer says.

Find partners
Whatever the theme and inspiration behind evening programming, partnerships offer opportunities to experiment with your spaces. Working with nontraditional partners can open the doors to innovation; a museum space can be enlivened and enriched whilst still remaining true to its position as a cultural institution. Partnerships can widen participation, build relationships with hard-to-reach groups and activate the development of micro-communities within your existing audience.

MCA Chicago has a rich culture of partnership-working which has revitalised its cultural programming, drawing in emerging adult audiences and families alike. The programme, reimagined by director of education Reitmaier three years ago, holds firmly with the vision statement of the organisation as: “an artist-activated and audience-engaged contemporary art museum.” The gallery’s flagship evening programmes which have shown the greatest upsurge in new audiences: MCA Prime Time.

“Prime Time is an after-hours series that taps into the creative pulse of Chicago with an eclectic mix of live music, performance art, film screenings and interactive programmes that transforms the museum in spectacular ways … the series is an electrifying social experience that provides a platform for artists and key cultural groups in the city.”

I was able to meet with Reitmaier during the planning stages of last year’s Prime Time R event. The evening featured a high-profile partnership with online music magazine Pitchfork and promised “new ways of being refreshed through a variety of live performances, art activations, and food and drink.” By working with and giving a platform to established and emerging artists, musicians, videogame designers and art collectives, MCA positions itself not just as an art gallery, but as a cultural organisation with a responsibility to further artistic endeavour and innovation. Reitmaier and her team consider content that has resonance and relevance to a wider audience and encourage dialogue between visitors and communities.

Have a bold voice
Partnership events are a civic exchange. They allow us to develop creative and cultural relationships, bring in communities, widen participation and extend our reach as an organisation. Set within an evening event programme, partnerships open up institutions to a wider, more diverse audience base. Working with partners helps us recognise trends, drivers and influencers in the emerging adult demographic.

With competition both online and in the real world, cultural institutions can still offer a lone bold and provocative voice for young people. From social justice issues to Dr Who, innovative and responsive museums are more successful with emerging adults.

It’s time to move away from the cathedralisation of knowledge and work with partners and communities to raise awareness that our institutions are there for everyone to enjoy. By building exciting new relationships with community leaders and advocates, we can reach new audiences, facilitate conversations and be a hub of cultural and civic exchange. When people are comfortable and passionate they spread the word about our institutions and become advocates for what we do.

Many organisations are now building advisory committees made up of this crucial emerging adult audience. Through membership schemes, focus groups and traditional advisory boards, these diverse groups work with cultural institutions to help direct programming, move young people through different levels of engagement and grow the leaders, influencers and donors of the future. Committee members all have their own sphere of influence and advocacy, offering multiple opportunities to grow relationships with the communities they represent

It’s true that, by many, events can be seen as throwaway fun and less valid than formalised learning within an institution, but it is possible for museums and galleries to be redefined as attractive destination venues for emerging adult visitors whilst maintaining integrity and validity. There will always be pressures on museums services to grow audiences, increase income, develop philanthropic programmes and cultivate visitor giving. Programming plays a central role in delivering these essential outcomes – a robust public programme can succeed in being profitable and help to shore up the financial future of our institutions.

In the museum world, we must accept that change is inevitable. We need to move and adapt to suit our visitors who demand innovative, bold programming. We need to be fluid, malleable and responsive to the emerging adult audiences who will inevitably become the donors, directors and creators. We cannot stay still and hope that what we have will be good enough. The world is moving fast and we need to hop onboard.

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Go late or go home! New kinds of programming are engaging younger audiences. Museums Sheffield’s Rosie Eagleton shares her research

Rosie Eagleton, events producer at Museums Sheffield,Museums Sheffield, Rosie Eagleton, younger audiences, Museums, galleries, Science Museum, Craft Jam Live Lates, Millennium Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Exploratorium’s Outdoor Gallery, San Fransisco, California, Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Illinois, Asian Art Museum in San Francisco