Exhibits

Well, today was the day - visiting the exhibits. I also went to a program on facility rentals, but pretty much skipped everything else for the [one-day-only] exhibits. Overall, I spent about 4-5 hours wandering through, and considering there were only about 75-100 exhibits, that was a lot of time.

I won't go through every company, but will give some of my overall findings...

Exhibit Designers
This is where I spent most of my time, just seeing projects they have worked on, asking about timeframes, cost, fabrication, green elements, etc. For the most part, exhibit designers will do anything you want. And, you can either get one exhibit from them or the whole space. And by the way, the lingo is this - "gallery" = a larger space filled with [perhaps] multiple "exhibits" of similar topic (so if we had a performance space, that would be the gallery, but the stage, puppet theatre, dress up area would be individual exhibits). You start by giving them the space you have to work with, the basic vision you have for the space, and then they put together a design charette to pull out ideas and get a real start. We did this with VG, so I felt like I at least understood the process. Once the design charrette is done, they go back to their office, come up with some ideas, you go back and forth, and hopefully come up with exactly what you want.

I described our project as 10,000 square feet (now some of that will be unassigned space of course - for space between exhibits), geared to 0-7 (which apparently could reduce the cost because it will reduce the technical requirements of stuff for older kids), but not sure of the overall "theme." I told them I was thinking about a little of everything - grocery store, performance space, backyard, vet, etc. OR going strictly "the arts" with a stage, puppet theatre, literary something (I want to buy that fairytale exhibit from the Magic House that we looked at earlier), music room, art studio, something multicultural, etc. Anyway, they loved our project because of the library component. Apparently Indianapolis Children's Museum built a branch of the local public library in there museum, but it't not done very well.

Factoids: The design and fabrication can take anywhere from 6 week (yeah, you pay for that privilege) to 18 months. Exhibits can cost approximately $200-$300 per square foot for something nice. One person quoted me about $150 per square foot, but I wasn't overly impressed with what they have done. Someone else quoted me $400-$800 per square foot whcih was CRAZY! I mentioned it to someone elss and they said that you could build Disneyland for that! Some companties fabricate their own stuff and some pay others to do it. General warantee is one year for most things but some offer as much as 20 years for the actual construction of it. Some companies do more in the way of using green products but no one was completely green. The consensus was, if you want it, they will do it (but green will cost some serious $$).

Here are some of the exhibit designers to which I spoke:
Kidzibits - I liked these people. It's a small company that seems to really get invested in the project, but some of their work looked pretty nice.

Vee - This group was interesting because they are not only in the exhibit business, they also create sets for theatre organizations.

Matthew Martin Design Works - This is an interesting story. When I got to this guys booth, he said "you're the librarian, I've been wanting to meet you..." He was in the emerging museums preconference I attended. Anyway, he lives in Lake Arrowhead! He has a business that creates exhibits and he was OVER THE MOON about our project and "REALLY REALLY" wants it. Yeah, sounds good, right - local guy, really interested, quality product - well, here's the catch - he is the one who came in at $400-800 per square foot - double what others quoted.

Kraemer Design + Production - This was one of my favorites for some reason. I liked the people I spoke with as well as the product. They seem big enough to create amazing things, realistic enough to give decent $$ and time predictions. This firm is also doing "Pretend City" which will open in Orange County in year or so.

Jack Rouse Associates - I liked this one too. This company pretty much handles everything. The person I spoke to is sending me a cost list for what they have done in the past, as well as a list of companies that do feasability studies.

In addition to these, I also visited a couple of companies that specialize in travelling exhibits. Some of these are museums that build their own. These rotating exhibits can be nice because they keep things fresh, but high-end exhibits can run about $50,000 for 4 months.

Also in the exhibits I visited some vendors that deal with manipulatives. Some of them looked very cool (including the Moon Sand). Just look at some of these pictures for more info.


So, that's about it for the exhibits. Well there is more, but I will tell you in person.

Michelle