Really well, as a matter of fact
July First visitors around the Rocket Landing 2% interactive game.
“Key performance indicator.” That’s business lingo for measuring how well we’re doing. Unlike many of the Bank’s departments, it’s easy to measure the Museum’s success: visitor numbers. Not to brag (Ha, who am I kidding?) we had 2,823 people visit the Museum on Canada Day. The following Sunday and holiday Monday yielded a further 933 and 756 visitors, respectively. Visitorship has stayed extremely healthy since then, averaging between 350 and 400 visitors a day. For the month of July and the first three weeks of August, that adds up to just over 25,000 visitors (wow). As an unfair comparison, the Currency Museum (as the Museum used to be called) pulled in just under 9,000 visitors for the same period in 2012. I say “unfair” because Ottawa had an unprecedented influx of tourists this summer. There was just so much going on. One day this month we recorded a whopping 902 visitors when “La Machine” roared through the neighbourhood. So, it would seem that when a giant, fire-breathing mechanical dragon-horse battles a two-story-tall spider near the Museum, it’s a boost for our attendance numbers. Or maybe it was our fine display of share certificates that was the draw. There’s just no way to tell.
We could not have been better placed to take advantage of the huge Canada Day crowds.
"La Machine", the French street theatre and animatronic beast-makers, presented one of their spectacular shows in Ottawa this summer.
Complicating these straightforward statistics is the attendance we recorded at our information kiosk on both Canada Day and Colonel By Day. Together, the two events drew 4,300 people to the kiosk. If you add this to the visitors in July, nearly 30,000 people (from all over Canada and the world) know we are here and have taken an interest in us—if only a mere 25,000 actually visited the Museum. It’s all good, and we couldn’t be happier with our first few weeks of business.
Colonel By Day. The Rideau Canal is still a big attraction. Our booth is up behind the Bytown Museum on the hill.
The military presence at Colonel By Day was purely of the historical re-enactment variety.
Once again, the temporary tattoos were amazingly popular with kids.
One key feature of the Museum was not available during these few weeks: the gift shop. Every museum needs a gift shop; it’s a traditional part of a family visit, but ours wasn’t going to be ready for opening day. We opened the doors at 10:00 on August 22. OK, it wasn’t Black Friday at the mall, but a very respectable number of visitors perused the items on the shelves on what turned out to be a miserably rainy day. We hit our targets on the following two days.
So, what’s the key performance indicator for the gift shop? To have a respectable day, the number of transactions should equal 8 per cent of the number of visitors to the Museum. This sounds pretty paltry, but the gift shop is not mandated to turn a profit. Its purpose is more closely related to the Museum’s mandate. The gift shop is a last chance for visitors to ask questions and to solidify or broaden their experience. It’s one more space for conversations about the Bank and the economy and is considered an “experience augmentation.” However, we still want you to buy stuff!
The only cute stuffed animal you can buy here is one seen on our money. We don’t sell monkeys or bunnies.
We’ll even sell you some used money.
The priciest things in the shop are these hand-painted, cast-iron mechanical coin banks.
I will say again just how happy we are with our first few weeks of operation. The good reviews are rolling in, and we’re already well on our way to meeting our visitorship targets for 2017. Yay!
The worst review we saw was one star from a guy who reviewed us in May. Not bad for a closed museum!
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The Museum Blog
June 23, 2015
The Canadian financial system of today is diverse… A little known but once prolific system member was loan and building societies. These firms made loans for the construction or purchase of property against mortgages as collateral.
New Acquisitions
By: Paul S. Berry
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May 21, 2015
Everyone loves getting presents, and we’re no exception. We recently received a very exciting donation of 50 silver coins. The collection was purchased in Lima, Peru, at an estate sale in the 1950s.
New Acquisitions
By: Raewyn Passmore
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April 6, 2015
Our little team from the Museum stood in the education space of the Sherbrooke Nature and Science Museum on a chill November morning while the exhibition technicians assembled our finished exhibition. Yes, finished.
The Adventure of Exhibit Planning IX
By: Graham Iddon
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March 11, 2015
You could work in the exhibition-fabrication business all your life and still run into things you wouldn’t expect: a never-ending series of “uh-ohs.” It’s one of the things that makes the job so interesting and demands a high level of creative problem-solving skills…
An Exhibition Installation
By: Graham Iddon
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February 26, 2015
What do you think of when you think of money? Is it coins? Is it bank notes? Three-hundred years ago people weren’t sure bank notes were really money; it took a long time for them to get used to the idea.
New Acquisitions
By: Raewyn Passmore
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January 30, 2015
The show… is an ideal opportunity for the Bank of Canada Museum to share a part of the National Currency Collection with Canadians. This year, we decided to tell the story of Canada’s phantom banks and the financial crisis of 1837.
Royal Canadian Numismatic Association Convention
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January 22, 2015
On this trip, we were all excited to see the 8-foot-tall wooden panels with the full copy printed directly onto them. Using a new process, staff of the exhibition fabrication department at the Sherbrooke Nature and Science Museum have produced some very impressive results.
The Adventure of Exhibit Planning VIII
By: Graham Iddon
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January 14, 2015
An exhibition fabrication company was finally selected by the Museum to produce the upcoming “Voices from the Engraver” travelling exhibition. It’s all very exciting.
The Adventure of Exhibit Planning VII
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December 15, 2014
The recent additions to the National Currency Collection described below are from very different parts of the world and are between 1500 and 2500 years old.
New Acquisitions
By: Raewyn Passmore
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November 28, 2014
The commemorative 1951 5 cent piece was issued to mark the 200th anniversary of the naming of nickel and its isolation as an element. Recently, I had the great pleasure to participate in the Big Nickel anniversary festivities and give a talk about the design competition for the 1951 5 cent coin.
The Big Nickel
By: Paul S. Berry
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