Coin-Operated Content: Is Pay to Play Really Such a Bad Idea?

Recently, I've become obsessed with the work of Tim Hunkin, an eccentric British inventor/exhibit designer/wacky science art guy who runs a "mad arcade" of coin-operated installations in Suffolk.

In 2007, Tim wrote an article called "In Praise of Coin-Operated Machines" in which he argues that coin-operated devices are a superior way to present exhibit-like content. He points out that coin operation:

• encourages visitors to make an "investment" in their selections and incentivizes them to really pay attention to the experience so they can "get their money's worth."
• lowers the number of users who just bang on the things, thus reducing maintenance costs and enabling more risky interactive design.
  
• helps facility managers maintain and track the usage and popularity of different exhibits.
• allows artists and inventors to supply their work directly to users rather than going through time-consuming and copyright-swallowing middlemen.
• changes the perception of who "owns" art. Pop in your quarter, and you become the short-term owner of the experience.

I've wondered for a long time about the potential for museums (especially interactive science centers) to operate on a "pay to play" model where visitors choose specific content of interest to invest their time and money into. This already happens in the case of standalone shows, theaters, and programmatic experiences, but I don't know of any museums that apply atomized fee structures to physical exhibits. It makes sense to me that in a large museum with way more stuff than you could possibly consume in one visit, you might want to pay for certain experiences but not for the whole shebang. In addition to Tim's arguments, there is the growing cultural expectation that people can purchase atomized content--the single song or application or article of interest. In the world of micro-transactions and on-demand content, the coin-operated model becomes even more relevant to the way visitors want to consume experiences.

So why haven't we seen museums that operate like arcades? The basic argument against the coin-operated admissions model is that "pay to play" induces a crass means test that makes the museum more accessible to those with more money, and that museums should not be putting parents under pressure to keep spending unlimited amounts of money to satisfy their childrens' interests. Also, the idea of visitors only selecting and accessing only a few exhibits is unsatisfactory given the attitude that the entire museum offers value and should be accessible to every visitor.

I'm skeptical of these arguments. Museums already have a means test--it happens in the lobby when you buy your ticket. Elaine Gurian has written convincingly about the threshold fear that would-be visitors encounter when they enter museums, and the often cloudy and stressful calculus families do to decide whether the museum experience will be "worth" the admission rate. I'm not sure what the difference is between a means test that happens continually throughout the institution and one that just happens at the gate. On the one hand, a person or family could choose to cheaply use just a bit of the museum. On the other, they may feel publicly discriminated against each time an exhibit asks for another token.

My feeling is that for people who already visit museums, for whom the means test of an admission ticket is well-understood, a pay to play model would be a convenient way to support visits of variable length and motivation. If the institution were free to enter but using various exhibits cost money, museums might become more accessible overall to a wider audience of people who like being in the space but choose not to or are not able to pay to play. Teenagers who can't afford to buy anything substantial hang out in the mall all the time. Why not in a museum? Why not spend that extra dollar to have a bit of science or art instead of a gumball?

The nice thing about coin-operated arcades is that it's not as if the experiences are entirely inaccessible to people who don't pay. The venue is not gated, and the experience is open to browsers and hangers-on. There's a heavy social spectator experience that is immersive and multi-sensory. You can walk in, get a feel for the place, watch how the different games work and see what kinds of experiences they offer their users, and then decide--judiciously one day, extravagantly the next--where to put your money.

I'm mostly convinced that museums should be free. But I also love Tim's argument about coin-operation and attention. If I have to vote with my wallet, I really get invested. I can imagine walking into a gallery in an art museum that looks like a peep show, looking at a brochure of digital images and having to decide which curtain I want to pay to remove for a minute. I imagine caring a lot more about how I choose that piece of art, how I enter that art experience. I imagine owning that experience. I imagine my minute being up and having to decide whether I want to insert another dollar to continue gazing or move on. I imagine all of these thought processes as being rich, engaged ways that I might connect more deeply with exhibit content.

But I also imagine stopping at some point, probably before I've seen as much as I typically do when I visit a museum. Maybe that would be a good thing because I'd have a more focused museum experience. Or maybe I wouldn't make the right decisions, seduced by attractive fluff, and would be disappointed by the overall experience.

What do you think? Are coin-operated exhibits a bad idea?

Deliberately Unsustainable Business Models

I once asked Eric Siegel, the Director of the New York Hall of Science, why museums are rarely innovative shining stars on the cutting edge of culture. He commented that as non-profits, "museums are built to survive, not to succeed."  Unlike startups and rock stars, museums aren't structured to shoot for the moon and burn up trying. They're made to plod along. Maybe it's time to change that.

Last year, I met Mark Allen, the founder of Machine Project, an extremely cool "post-educational" space in Los Angeles that is part art gallery, part workshop space, part mad scientist party central. They host events like Dorkbake in which people design their own Easybake-esque ovens and then bake cakes in them. Next month, the space is being turned into a magic forest. Their mission statement is: "Machine Project exists to encourage heroic experiments of the gracefully over-ambitious."

At one point, Mark commented that they have a "deliberately unsustainable" business model. In other words: do great stuff while you can, and when you can't do it anymore, stop. This is the model that governs most businesses and artistic endeavors. It's the reason terms like "jump the shark" exist. Most companies, rock bands, and sports teams are only brilliant for so long. Then they start to slide. Then they die.

Of course, the current financial crisis demonstrates what happens when companies set up artificial life support systems to prolong themselves far beyond their ability to provide great products and services. The unusual part of Mark's statement isn't the acknowledgment that Machine Project will only exist as long as it is relevant and good; it's the desire to close up shop when the excellence ends. It's incredibly rare for an organization or company to seek deliberate unsustainability. Most want to provide consistent jobs for their employees so their families can be secure. They want to provide quality products that are reliable over the long run. They want to promise consistent services that consumers can bank on. That's why TV shows jump the shark. When they can, they will claw their way through as many seasons as possible.

The problem arises when the desire to sustain overcomes the desire to be awesome and more resources go to surviving than succeeding. This is abundantly clear in the case of US automakers and banks, whose current arguments for financial support rest on their need to survive, not their ability to succeed. Is it true of your museum too?

For some museums, awesomeness has never been part of the mission statement or core services. Elizabeth Merritt from AAM wrote a provocative post last week about the financial future of museums in which she suggests, among other things, that 20% of museums should be allowed to fail in the coming decades. As she puts it:

My observation, after thirty years of working in the field, is that museums have an amazing ability to survive in the most adverse environments. They are the cockroaches of the nonprofit world--sometimes it really does seem like you can’t kill them with an atomic blast. Most of the time some improbable deus ex machina saves the day: for example an unexpected cash gift or a free building. Mind you, this often only saves the distressed museum from closure—it does not cure the underlying dysfunction. The museum may simply struggle along for another ten years before the next potentially fatal crisis.

The underlying dysfunction that Elizabeth mentions is often an inability to focus on anything but survivability. To make it, museums need to survive AND succeed. I think it's important for museums to undergo an exercise in which you list out two types of things:

1. core services that people depend on and need to survive. These include jobs for employees and programs that address a societal gap not provided by other organizations or businesses. For example, maybe your museum provides job training for at-risk youth and your community relies on your consistent ability to do so.
2. services you provide that make you awesome. What drives people through your door, gets them excited, and connects them passionately with your content?

You should be able to point with pride to both the ways you support the community with reliable, consistent services and supreme awesomeness. The desire to survive will always exist, whether you run a small institution or a giant one. It's human nature to want to keep your job and keep doing what you're doing. The challenge is not to make it your primary goal.