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Figure 1 Hogarth, Southwark Fair 1733

ENTERTAINMENT IN TODAY MUSEUMS

“I don’t want to be educated; I want to be drowned in beauty”

Diana Vreeland on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute

The notion of entertainment in museums uses mainly to refer to the pleasure rather than pedagogy. Pontus Hulten, the Centre of Pompidou’s first director, said about the entertainment in museums “not about explaining but dreaming, excitement.” The entertainment in museums not just the art experience but also it extends to involve the commercial amenities that enhance the museums activities and make it more enjoyable.

The entertainment in museum have fundamental role of attracting people and it gives the museum a new vision of integrate the education with the entertainment to form a new idea the infotainment. A 1990 article in the journal Museum News describes Disneyland:

“Theme parks . . . propose a new vision for education and exhibition, one based not on a literal or historical vision but an archetypes and community consensus history. They speak a new language: multisensory, entertainment-based, three-dimensional, and symbolic”.

The commercial amenities are essential part of today museums for many reasons. Firstly, it makes museum more socialize space, secondly, it is very good way of financing and gives more abilities to the museums to develop while reduce the long-standing government support for cultural institutions. Finally, the museums which display their arts in a sense of fun and have many types of activities vary from shopping, eating, performances, etc. have more opportunity to attract more visitor than other museums.

COMMERCIAL AMENITIES AND MUSEUM EXPERIENCE

Commercial amenities in museums are not a recent phenomenon, from 1851 retailing had been essential part of the experience in the Great Exhibition and in 1857 the first restaurant was opened. Bennett (1995) said, “in attempting to become accessible to wider audience, museums have to model museum shops on the sales outlets of tourist sites, but, he contends, while this may broaden their customer base it will not, in itself, alter the composition of visitor, since the image of the museum as a middle-class preserve remains essentially unchanged”[3]

Kotler (2004) thought that an observable trend in museums is the increase in attention to sociable, recreational and participatory experiences, redirecting the traditional and singular focus on collections and exhibitions. While audience research shows that, for the majority of visitors, social and recreational experiences have become more important the educational and intellectual ones.

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