In the last months of the Lindow Man exhibition there has been a revival of interest from people looking at the Blog. As you might expect, back in April/May 2008 there was a peak in the number of hits because of the blaze of publicity surrounding the opening of the exhibition. On the Lindow Man Stats graph there is a peak of around 2700 last April but this rapidly fell to build gradually to about 740 hits in the autumn before falling away again, reaching a ‘low’ last December. Since then, however, the number of hits has increased to around 800 and there have been two consecutive months of growth. This probably reflects renewed interest in the North now that people know Lindow Man is going again – to Newcastle direct or via the British Museum I don’t know at the present time. The winning of the best temporary exhibition award during Design Week must also have helped raise the profile.
Last week was half term for schools in Manchester and Anna Bunney, Curator of Public Programmes at the Museum, arranged crafts and handling activities on the theme of Lindow Man. There were cut-out and colour in swords and shields, making miniature prehistoric axes, friendship bracelets and trying on replica Iron Age clothing.
Many of the curators were involved and I did a couple of sessions later on in the week.
I demonstrated the Iron Age clothes that were purchased thanks to the generosity of the Dorset Foundation and the Heritage Lottery Fund. They included tunics and trousers, dresses and cloaks in a range of garish patterns.They particularly appealed to children who enjoyed dressing up and looking at themselves in a mirror.
I explained how such clothing continued into the Roman period and that Lindow Man is likely to have worn similar clothes, although he seems to have gone into the bog naked. It was announced at this morning’s diary meeting that we had had about 4000 visitors per day last week. This is likely to have been in response to marketing and publicity by the Museum.
It may also reflect the fact that in this time of financial austerity families are not going abroad but are staying at home and choosing to visit free attractions like the Museum. A number of Manchester venues had high visitor figures last week.
Filed under: Lindow Man Exhibition, Visitor Figures | Tags: Lindow Man vistor survey
Attended yesterday’s data group meeting at which the results of lasts summer’s visitor survey by Morris Hargreaves McIntyre was presented. It showed that total visits to the Manchester Museum had increased by 23% compared to the same period (July to September) last year and that half of the 55,909 visitors came to see a specific exhibition, namely Lindow Man. However, a new system of counting visitors has been introduced so that might explain some of the increase. Three quarters of visitors saw the Lindow Man exhibition. There has been an increase in the numbers of older visitors and there was a significantly higher proportion of visitors coming from outside Manchester. Younger people and Manchester residents were proportionally less well-represented. This could indicate that older, more affluent people are taking the opportunity to come and see Lindow Man whilst he’s here but that local and younger people have perhaps already heard about him and seen him. Some of the increase in older visitors could be people who were themselves young in the 1980s bringing their grandchildren to see Lindow Man. The priority target groups (socio-economic groups C2s, Ds and Es, BME communities and disabled people) have increased by 2000 compared to 2007-8. Some of this increase could be explained by the fact that larger numbers of older people are coming to see Lindow Man and older people tend to have proportionally higher rates of disability and illness than younger people. Medwen at MHM is going to check this detail for us using a “cross-tabulation” so hopefully there’ll be some clarification. Whatever the case, Lindow Man’s continuing ability to attract visitors is confirmed. Many more of our visitors are also aware that Lindow Man is on loan to us from the British Museum (until 19th April 2009).
A student with a pressing essay deadline emailed me last week to ask how many visitors we have had to the Lindow Man exhibition. I checked with Carole Knight, Project Admininstation Assistant here at the Manchester Museum, and she has recorded that 94,608 people have visited the exhibition during the period 18/04/08 to 17/01/09. The first exhibition in 1987 attracted 50,000 people in three months.
First day back at work since Xmas Eve and some of the first things to deal with are an enquiry from a lady on the Isle of Man who wants to bring her son to see Lindow Man in February and an enquiry from a student at Bristol University doing a final year dissertation on how opinions of the Lindow Man have progressed since the discovery. In the case of the student there must be a huge amount of material, much of it discussed on the Lindow Man Blog, or in the Collective Conversation that compared and contrasted the 1980s and 1990s exhibitions with the current exhibition. To help the lady and her son plan their visit I rang Anna Bunney, Curator of Public Programmes, to find out whether any public events or activities are taking place during that half term week. In the What’s On guide there’s a quote from a Museum visitor saying “The unfinished look and empty shelves suggest that our knowledge of Lindow Man is incomplete and that anyone can add their interpretation, if only symbolically, into them.” This reminds me that visitors interpret museum exhibitions in their own way and there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. I seem to remember reading something about an author’s intentions not being authoritative in creating a work of fiction or drama. New meanings, new readings of the text are always possible and certainly not wrong. Underlying all of this is the realisation that Lindow Man only has less than four months to go before the British Museum loan expires. A sobering thought for anyone who wants to come and see him in Manchester.
