![\"screen-shot-2016-11-15-at-22-49-08\"](\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2016\/11\/Screen-Shot-2016-11-15-at-22.49.08.png\")
<\/p>\nSo you\u2019ve finally made it to Paris, France. You wake up the next day, on Sunday, and bring your family to the Louvre museum at around 10AM, and this is what you see\u2026.1.5hr line.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fig. 1. Line outside the Louvre<\/p>\n
You tell yourself, 1.5hr line is fine, as long as you can see the famous Mona Lisa painting you\u2019ve heard so much about.\u00a0But this is what you actually end up looking at\u2026lots of camera screens,\u00a0not much of the painting itself.<\/p>\n
Does this sound familiar? The experience surrounding the visit of a museum is often disappointing for a number of reasons, but up to now no clear alternatives were available. Virtual Reality (VR) headsets are slowly emerging as a substitute to visiting art galleries, potentially threatening museums\u2019 business model.<\/p>\n Fig. 3. Oculus Rift headset<\/p>\n Manufacturers such as Samsung, Oculus Rift, and Sony are bringing to market VR headsets that enable immersive experience from any location. It isn\u2019t hard to imagine how this technology could adversely impact museums\u2019 business model, not just by removing several of the pain points that affect the museum experience but also by making the experience more interactive and exciting in a way a museum can\u2019t.<\/p>\n How are the museums responding to this digital transformation?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n One might think that because museums are often\u00a0nonprofit, they might not care much about a reduction in the number of visitors. While\u00a0largely funded by state subsidy and private donations, museums still rely heavily\u00a0on ticket sales to meet their budget. For the Louvre museum, 28% of its 216m\u20ac revenue in 2012 came from ticket sales [1] (in line with the 31% average figure reported by the American Alliance of Museums in 2006 [2]). As such,\u00a0to continue funding their operations\u00a0and\u00a0acquire new Art pieces, museums have come up with ways to attract visitors, often adding a layer of digital to their existing installations.<\/p>\n Play it safe – improve existing audioguide offering<\/strong><\/p>\n Most museums propose audio guides to visitors as a way to enhance their experience, but these guides do not generate significant revenue. The Louvre offers a free mobile app, and a 5\u20ac Nintendo 3DS version that you can rent in place of the usual audio guides. Only 4% of the 8.5 million annual visitors choose to rent the available audio guides, generating a paltry 1.7m\u20ac in yearly revenue [3]. Audiences want to be engaged, but an incremental evolution of the audio guide probably isn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n Fig. 4. Museum Australia Innovation Study (2014) [4]<\/p>\n Experiment in exhibit designs<\/strong><\/p>\n Some museums have started to mix physical objects with basic digital tools, Fig. 5. shows the example of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York which uses projection mapping to reimagine how the museum\u2019s Temple of Dendur looked like. Again, incremental in nature, these changes do not appear to radically enhance the visitor\u2019s experience.<\/p>\n Fig 5. Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Temple of Dendur section<\/p>\n Integrate VR into the museum experience<\/strong><\/p>\n The British Museum uses virtual reality to transport visitors to the bronze age. It allows visitors to explore an historical site featuring objects from the museum\u2019s collection that have been 3D scanned and placed in their original setting.<\/p>\n Fig 6. Interior of a virtual reality Bronze Age roundhouse [5]<\/p>\n While offering a VR experience helps engage visitors, it does not solve the issue of accommodating a large number of visitors in a given location. Also, once the virtual world has been created and could thus be accessed from home, the appeal to physically come to the museum is reduced.<\/p>\n Comes in the\u00a0“Netflix of the Arts”<\/strong><\/p>\n WoofbertVR [6], a startup ran by a MoMA curator, has partnered with leading museums to offer virtual museum tours accessible to all online. Called the \u201cNetflix of the Arts\u201d by Forbes, it is free for the moment (as museums provide their Art rights for free), but has indicated that it will charge a fee at some point.<\/p>\n Fig 7. Close up view of a painting by Edouard Manet – A Bar at the Folies-Berg\u00e8re in the VR world.<\/p>\n WoofbertVR also enables users to step into the painting and be absolutely immersed within the scene.<\/p>\n Fig 8. Once in the painting<\/p>\n WoofbertVR is a great example of what the combination of VR headsets and the internet could offer beyond just seeing up close Art.<\/p>\n Additional steps<\/strong><\/p>\n All previously discussed\u00a0onsite<\/span>\u00a0digital experiences proposed by museums do not appear to radically enhance the\u00a0value proposition of coming to the museum, nor generate additional revenue for the moment. While VR could be perceived as a threat to museums, it could also be viewed as a tool to\u00a0democratize access to Art, in turn encouraging people to see the real Art pieces at the museums\u00a0afterwards. In any case, museums should rethink their business and operating model,\u00a0and consider licensing the rights to\u00a0“view” their museums in the digital world, as this could become a new important revenue stream. One caveat to that, observing how the digital transformation operated in the entertainment and music industry with Netflix and iTunes, museums should consider not letting a single 3rd party owned platform monopolize the majority of the market, in turn building a\u00a0large bargaining power.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n (796 words)<\/p>\n Sources<\/u><\/p>\n [1] http:\/\/www.louvre.fr\/en\/missions-projects<\/a><\/p>\n [2] http:\/\/futureofmuseums.blogspot.com\/2009\/03\/forecasting-financial-future-of-museums.html<\/a><\/p>\n [3] http:\/\/newatlas.com\/louvre-nintendo-3ds-tour-guide\/20877\/<\/a><\/p>\n [4]http:\/\/museumsaustralia.org.au\/userfiles\/file\/GLAM_Innovation_Study_September2014-Report_Final_accessible.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n [5] https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/culture\/2015\/aug\/04\/british-museum-virtual-reality-weekend-bronze-age<\/a> and http:\/\/vrscout.com\/news\/british-museum-virtual-reality-tours\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do you enjoy the experience surrounding the visit of a museum? Virtual Reality (VR) headsets are slowly emerging as a substitute to visiting art galleries, potentially threatening museums\u2019 business model.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2616,"featured_media":14798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[278,2080,2056],"class_list":["post-14796","hck-submission","type-hck-submission","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-virtual-reality","category-vr"],"connected_submission_link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/assignment\/digitization-challenge-2016\/","yoast_head":"\n![\"screen-shot-2016-11-15-at-22-49-21\"](\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2016\/11\/Screen-Shot-2016-11-15-at-22.49.21.png\")
<\/a> \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Fig. 2. Inside the Mona Lisa room \u2013 Le Louvre museum.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n