Visiting a museum or an art gallery should be a positive, eye opening experience. One of the most important jobs in a museum is to ensure that the visitors have a good time. However, sometimes artwork protection and visitor experience can cause discord when guests become too eager and get too close to valuable items.
When a visitor is confronted by a guard after a collection piece is touched, they feel embarrassed and possibly defensive. In addition, the experience is stressful for the guard, creating an uncomfortable situation for both individuals.
To avoid this stressful interaction, a Top US Museum* implemented the Art Sentry system that simply alerts the visitor when they get too close to a piece of artwork - providing a ‘private correction’ to the visitor. Since the audible alerts are 100% objective, there is no judgement call needed by the security personnel and visitors don’t feel singled out.
With the artwork protection system in place, this museum found that the visitor experience improved and complaints were greatly reduced. During a major event which brought 141,000 visitors through the museum, there were zero complaints - a first in the museum’s history. Additionally, without the burden of having to watch the art, the guards were able to focus more on customer service, which created a better experience for museum visitors.
Ensuring the visitor’s viewing experience is not impacted by the presence of cameras is a key goal when implementing artwork protection for valuable historical objects. Art Sentry works with the museum, gallery, or organization team to create a camera and speaker setup that is practically invisible. This helps ensure that guests visiting your institution feel comfortable, and the security personnel can focus on helping create a better visitor experience.
Cameras are not visible to museum visitors.
Cameras and cubed speaker protect the paintings and do not interfere with visitors' viewing experience.
To learn more about preventing harm to irreplaceable artifacts, read a case study about how a Top US Museum* prevented artifact touches by 92%.
Are you interested in learning how Art Sentry's camera-based motion detection system can improve the visitor experience? Contact us today!
*Due to the sensitive nature of museum security operations, actual client names often are not used in Art Sentry case studies. If client names are used, all content has been approved for use by the museum's executive management.