Twenty-six evenings, one museum and a guest list that sold out every week. A look behind the doors.
When the Musée des Docks asked us to bring in younger visitors, the obvious answer was a party. We thought the museum itself was more interesting than any party we could throw in it, so we built Open Late around the collection.
Make the evening feel like a different museum
Every Friday the lights dropped, two galleries got a live score and the curators gave ten-minute talks in front of one work each. There was a bar, but it closed before the galleries did. The point was to look at things, and guests did.
Sell out early, on purpose
We capped each night at 450 tickets and released them on Monday mornings. The first evening sold out in a day, and the waiting list did more for the next one than any ad could have. Over the season we ran 26 evenings, all sold out, with 11,000 guests in total.
What the numbers said
38% of guests had never visited the museum before. After four months, evening visits overtook daytime ones. In the exit survey, nine in ten said they would come again. The museum has now made Friday openings permanent and runs them with its own team, which is the best result a campaign can have.
( Next article )
The case for a smaller launch