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In this issue:
Welcome
Let your visitors phone in for a garden guided tour
It’s scary, it’s inflatable, it’s Huge Carnivorous Plants, OH MY!
Ask the Expert: Eight questions for selecting the right traveling exhibit
We’ll keep you posted – update on the Amazing Chocolate Tree
Annie Hickman, aka The Bug Lady, will WOW your visitors

School seems to start earlier every year, and the vacation visitors will be yielding to school tours in outdoor venues across the country. This month we have a preview of a new exhibit that will really appeal to this audience -- Huge, Carnivorous Plants, OH MY! Interpretive Specialist Mary Kay Cunningham works through her list of eight questions to help you choose the exhibit that will really pull your guests into the experience, and Dave Asheim shares a new way to connect your visitors to both permanent displays and traveling exhibits via their cell phones. With a dash of whimsy from the Bug Lady, you will be ready to launch into the next season with some innovative ideas to delight visitors of all ages.

Picture this: a group of visitors is making its way through your garden or arboretum. Here and there, a group member pauses in front of a numbered marker. The visitor reaches into his pocket, pulls out his cell phone and listens intently to a detailed description of the garden feature presented by a curator or the garden director.

Sound like a long stretch of the imagination? Not really, it is happening right now in gardens and other venues across the country. The new delivery channel for interpretive messages is the brain child of David Asheim, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He got the idea for cell phone tours when he and his wife visited the Prado Museum in Madrid.

“They had run out of English guides, the audio tours were 10 euros, which is a lot of money, the tour only covered one percent of the items on display, you had to give up your passport and you had to make a decision the minute you walked in the door," he relates. "I said to my wife, let's turn the cell phone into an audio guide."

It actually took more than two years and a $2.5-million investment in technology to make the idea a reality, but the first cell phone guided tour made its debut at the San Jose Museum of Art in California in November 2005.

How would it work in your garden? The process is definitely simple. You call and record your tour just as if you were recording a voice mail message. You place small markers in your garden that correspond to the various messages you have recorded. The visitor accesses the audio guide using his own cell phone. He just dials in, then presses the item number he wants to hear about. He can remain connected throughout his visit to the garden or hang up and dial at each point of interest, and he can listen to the messages in any order he wishes.

For a limited time, gardens setting up the program can have a one-month free trial. After that, the company offers three payment options: visitors pay for the guide with their entrance fee and the host venue splits the revenue with Guide by Cell, visitors pay for the audio guide by calling the audio guide number and entering their credit card numbers or your venue can offer the guide at no cost to visitors and pay Guide by Cell on a per user basis or on a flat monthly fee, generally around $200 to $300 per month. Asheim suggests that corporate sponsors or benefactors may be interested in underwriting the service, and sponsor recognition can be inserted at the start of the tour.

Another excellent way to begin the program is with a welcome from the garden director. And because of its flexibility, curators can call in any time and update the interpretive message to accommodate changes in the program or what’s new this week. Featured artists can add their own messages to personalize an art exhibit and benefactors can explain why they chose to donate a particular piece or underwrite a specific display. The options are limited only by your imagination – a celebrity tour, age specific tours, tours in foreign languages…

An added benefit is the live, web-based statistics capture that comes with the program. You can see how many people listened to each item, in what order, at what time and for how long, providing data for marketing, grant proposals or capital campaigns.

Look for a big, scary new exhibit that will delight and educate your garden visitors in mid 2007. The project is the latest creation of Fun Art Exhibits, LLC, owned and operated by five independent artists and business professionals -- Chris Coleman, Danny Warner, Sunny Strasburg, Martin Stensaat and Tracy Archuleta. Based in Salt Lake City, the group designs and promotes interactive art for botanical gardens, zoos, theme parks and large-scale events.

The five are heavily connected to their communities and to the humanity of appreciating nature, according to Tracy Archuleta, promotional director for the group. “We enjoy working with botanical gardens because they offer a setting that is appealing, educational, engaging and fun for everyone to enjoy,” she explains.

Huge Carnivorous Plants, OH MY! Is a scientific traveling exhibit with 12 inflatable carnivorous plants and a geodesic immersion dome space. Projection and narration explain how carnivorous plants capture insects in a way that is exciting and fun for kids.

You can see sketches of the components and the exhibit logo at hcplants.com. For scheduling and logistics, email Archuleta at tracy@hcplants.com.

Creating new connections (part 1 of a 2 part series)
Eight questions for selecting the right traveling exhibit
By Mary Kay Cunningham, Interpretive Specialist

Traveling exhibits can provide botanic gardens with great opportunities and challenges for connecting visitors to their collections. More than just displaying plants, gardens must help build bridges between the reasons they exist (the mission) and the reason that people visit. Interpretation can serve as this bridge in the form of signs, brochures or public programs (tours, demonstrations, etc.) Thoughtful interpretation can create connections to collections that are meaningful and relevant. When visitors feel connected, they are more likely to invest their time (as visitors, volunteers or even staff) and resources (such as leisure-time dollars or philanthropic contributions.)

So, if we recognize that making connections with visitors is vital to the success of gardens, then we must consider new opportunities to make these connections. Traveling exhibits offer a unique opportunity to reach new audiences while providing a reason for past visitors to return again. But even the best exhibits must be selected and integrated into the garden to ensure that connections are made. When selecting or planning for a traveling exhibit, here are some questions that will help you to find connections to your existing collections and messages:

Once these questions have been considered, foundation for making connections with visitors has been established. Review the responses and be certain that all interpretation created for the traveling exhibit emphasizes connections to the garden’s mission, messages and collection. Good interpretation should capitalize on connections while strengthening areas of weakness identified in your responses. For instance, if visitor interest is the most compelling reason to bring the exhibit to the garden, interpretation can build on this strength by ensuring that important mission-based stories are shared with the many visitors who will experience the exhibit.

Research shows that visitors who are personally engaged in learning will be more likely to retain information and build connections to the site. Subsequently, interpretation (both live interpreters and graphic elements) should seek to engage visitors in a learning conversation through the use of questions, directives (for how to interact with or view an object) or props that can be handled or experienced directly. These techniques will be discussed in Part 2 of this article.

For more immediate resources on how to train interpreters or create conversational interpretation, go to http://www.visitordialogue.com/resources/.

Mary Kay Cunningham is an interpretive specialist based in Portland, Oregon. She has worked with more than 20 gardens and museums throughout the country to facilitate meaningful connections between institutions and their visitors through interpretive training, planning and programming. She can be reached at marykay@visitordialogue.com.

The first exhibit offering of the WOW consortium of gardens – The Amazing Chocolate Tree – was premiered at the Franklin Park Conservatory in November 2005 – see the December issue of New to Use for details (openairexhibits.com, click on Newsletter in the top nav bar to reach archives). Periodic checks with Franklin Park Conservatory staff indicate that rental specifics have not yet been finalized, but you’ll see them here as soon as they are available.

From the Resource Center @ openairexhibits.com
Annie Hickman, aka The Bug Lady

Years before The Lion King wowed audiences with African-inspired costumes and puppets, Annie Hickman was creating her own basketry-woven creature costumes. Annie is a costume designer, artist, dancer, and lover of nature. With graceful movement she brings life to her lizard, insect, and centipede costumes - fantastic weavings of color, basketry, and whimsy! For more than 25 years, Annie has been bringing her artful performances to gardens, theatres, museums, zoos and festivals around the world, both in stage shows and strolling solo and ensemble work. She can be booked as a stand-alone event or combined with other events to create a delightful visitor experience. You can see photos on the openairexhibits.com web site in the Resource Center (click on the top nav bar) or to see Annie in action, visit www.bugsandballoons.com. For booking information, contact Allynn Gooen & Annie Hickman, 800-660-BUGS (2847).

Editor: Cathy Garison
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