In 2021, attendance at museums and monuments was once again affected by the crisis COVID. In 2022, now that health restrictions have been lifted, cultural institutions must redouble their efforts to reconnect with their former audiences, and even develop new ones. If attracting teenagers and young adults (15-25) to museums was particularly difficult before the crisis, such a challenge is even more difficult today. Although an increased online presence has helped to maintain links with these young people, the physical disconnect caused by successive closures seems to have been profound. Nevertheless, a number of particularly inspiring initiatives have emerged in recent years on the part of museum professionals to reach out to these young audiences. These initiatives are all the more topical when it comes to meeting the challenges of winning back this visitor segment. In fact, this will be one of the themes we’ll be addressing at the Rencontres Patrimoines & innovations. organized at the Hôtel de Sully (headquarters of the Centre des monuments nationaux) on Thursday April 21, 2022.
1. From consideration of the specific needs of young adults to the creation of dedicated programs.
In an article entitled Les publics d’un siècle à l’autre (Audiences from one century to the next), Olivier Donnat describes how, in the early 80s, under the impetus of the French Ministry of Culture and a number of societal changes, audience policy came to be seen as “plural”: young, special, disadvantaged and other audiences. This recognition of the diversity and uniqueness of audiences has helped to legitimize the specific needs and expectations of certain categories of visitor, at the risk of dissolving the overall issues of accessibility to culture for the most remote audiences. Adolescents and young adults are no exception, and a range of educational and cultural projects, as well as targeted offerings and pricing, have been implemented to take better account of their specific needs.
The creation of events such as the Nuit Européenne des musées seems to have encouraged the development of these young audiences. Launched in France in 2005, the Nuit des musées was conceived in a spirit of festivity and conviviality. It follows on from the “printemps des musées” (springtime of museums) to offer an event, this time nocturnal, that appeals to a new, younger, night-owl audience.
The Nuit des musées has become an opportunity for experimentation, to fine-tune the programming of night-time openings for certain museums, and to adapt to the rhythm of students’ outings. Numerous initiatives have thus emerged to offer night-time mediation operations carried out by students for students. This is the case, for example, of the biannual event created over 15 years ago by the Musée du Louvre: les jeunes ont la parole.
In cities with large student populations (such as Grenoble or Lille), this type of mediation operation is particularly popular. The Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille offers students its nocturne Modèles vivants The Musée de Grenoble is organizing its twelfth nocturne in March 2022, featuring some fifteen artistic projects. The program is broadened to include artistic creation, to diversify the audience, but also by opening up to other cultural fields such as contemporary music, DJ sets, cinema, gastronomy, dance, digital technology, etc. Transformed into a nocturnal experience where the museum becomes a place of exception, offering visitors a new perspective on the collections or exhibitions on offer, this type of event has multiplied in recent years, demonstrating the creativity of museums in this area: Curieuses nocturnes at the Musée d’Orsay, Before evenings at the Quai Branly, FLVLAB nocturne at Fondation Louis Vuitton, etc.
Now, nocturnes, offers of itineraries at the crossroads of mediation, entertainment and pop culture have emerged, drawing on the world of games, TV series and video games. This is the case, for example, with the escape games that have flourished in recent years (see Exposcope’s excellent article on the subject), some of which have been created in partnership with video game players, such as the one at Hôtel des Invalides, with Cultival and Ubisoft (based on the world of Assassin’s Creed), or the one at Monnaie de Paris in association with Netflix and Fever (inspired by the series La Casa de Papel).
To conclude this panorama, some museums and art centers have gone so far as to create dedicated reception areas with recurring programming. This is the case, for example, of Studio 13-16 at the Centre Pompidou.
By developing a cultural program dedicated to young adults, heritage sites can not only open up to a wide range of other cultural fields, but also broaden their programming to include contemporary societal issues. However, designing and staging such events requires the mobilization of teams, resources and time. To give meaning to these nocturnes and avoid succumbing to an overly distracting logic (while retaining a certain attractiveness), links with the site, its collections or exhibitions seem essential to weave. Such a balance between attractiveness, entertainment and mediation can sometimes seem difficult to achieve. In such cases, it seems necessary to confirm the specific presupposed tastes of these young audiences, both with in-house teams and with some of them, to confirm or invalidate this programming. Finally, targeting these audiences requires the deployment of a range of levers and resources, both in terms of communication and dedicated pricing. However, the latter is more difficult to envisage, given the concept of free admission, which has been in force in French museums since 2009.)
2. Challenges/limits of free admission and opportunities offered by the Culture Pass.
For over 10 years, young people under the age of 26 who are citizens of the European Union have been entitled to free admission to the permanent collections of France’s national museums. This measure is part of the cultural democratization policy pursued by the Ministry of Culture and its institutions. More than 3 million young people aged between 18 and 25 benefited from this free admission in 2019. The “Listening to Visitors” survey (2019) of visitors to national museums and monuments confirmed that free access to collections played a role in their decision to visit for more than three-quarters of the 18-25 year-olds who benefited.
Despite the success of this measure, back in 2011, the Cour des Comptes (French National Audit Office) recommended, in a report on the autonomy of national museums, that this “overly general” measure be discontinued, and that “the resources devoted to it be redeployed for more targeted actions aimed at audiences far removed from culture”. In addition, targeting a “free” public could contribute to reducing the development actions undertaken with the latter (deemed unprofitable). Lastly, this type of measure would seem to weaken the price modulation that museums might consider as part of their promotional activities to attract these audiences.
In view of this, the launch of the Culture Pass for 15-18 year olds in 2019 could help to promote and re-evangelize museum offerings to these young audiences.
Since January 2022, as part of the policy to developartistic and cultural education and a partnership between the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of National Education, Youth and Sports, the scheme has also enabled teachers to book school outings for classes from the fourth to the final year, for public and private establishments under contract. With this in mind, the Conseil d’Analyse Économique recommends making the Pass Culture a cultural policy tool for the whole of France, focusing on “learning through practice and local cultural offerings”, and even allocating certain cultural expenditure to heritage or performing arts venues.
In addition to price, which is a limited variable for young audiences, communicating specifically with this potential visitor group also seems to be a particularly key issue.
3. Targeting young adults: means, levers and challenges.
To communicate with teenagers and young adults, we have developed increasingly targeted communications initiatives, jointly managed by our public relations and communications departments. These involve, for example, the mobilization of influencers with a strong resonance with young audiences, intervention on social platforms favored by the latter (such as Tiktok, Instagram, Youtube or Twitch), presence on mediums such as video games, or the development of partnerships with schools/universities.
For many years now, social network influencers have been mobilized by museums, and a number of different collaborations between influencers and museums can be envisaged. In an article for Mon cher Watson, for example, Amélie Benchallal discusses various collaborations between influencers and museums. These include Camille Jouneaux(La Minute Culture), Antoine Vitek(Culturez-Vous) and Le Scribe Accroupi.
When it comes to mobilizing influencers and developing communications on the platforms most appreciated by young adults, the Château de Versailles is a good example. On Youtube, for example, musician Thylacine was invited to record the sounds of the château (parquet, clock, harpsichords, etc.) to recreate an immersive musical experience shared on the famous video platform, which is particularly popular with young adults (71% of 15-24 year-olds use Youtube monthly).
As for social networks (such as Twitch, Instagram or Tiktok), the Château de Versailles is increasingly present on TikTok, for example, where, in just one month of existence on this platform, the heritage site has managed to attract 5,000 subscribers. To refine the subject, an excellent podcast published by Quai des savoirs features an enlightening interview with Elisabeth Gravil on the relevance (or otherwise) of being present on these platforms for heritage sites.
However, these figures need to be qualified. Various injunctions with regard to these platforms have led cultural institutions to invest in them, without necessarily always being familiar with their codes. Such investment has often added to the already heavy workload of digital teams (or, for the vast majority of museums, shared with other tasks and missions).
This being said, intervention on such platforms has particularly developed with the health crisis, and has also been an opportunity to build skills in terms of content writing, animation specificities, mobilizing new communities and new partners or influencers. This increased online presence among young adults has also helped to renew, at the very least, the image of certain cultural venues, and even contribute to the development of these young audiences.
While the health crisis seemed to cut off physical contact with teenagers and young adults, the many initiatives developed online on the Web and social networks by heritage institutions have enriched and forged new forms of links with these audiences. Reduced health restrictions and the return of ambitious event programming will surely help to renew these links between young adults and museums. Nevertheless, there are many issues at stake, and we’ll be discussing them on Thursday April 21 at the next Rencontres IESA Patrimoines et innovations.
Antoine ROLAND
