Season Ticket Holders Survey 2013

Abbie Chidwick

Eleanor Root

Sarah Allman

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................. 1

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 3

Methodology ........................................................................................................................................... 7

Data Analysis and Results ............................................................................................................... 8

‘About You’........................................................................................................................................................................... 9

‘About Your Visit’ ............................................................................................................................................................ 11

‘About the Museum’ .................................................................................................................................................. 13

Conclusions and Recommendations ....................................................................................... 19

Conclusions ................................................................................................................................................................ 19

Recommendations .............................................................................................................................................. 20

Executive Summary We carried out this research in Spring 2013 in order to find out more about our most loyal visitors – season ticket holders. It is part of a wider aim to better know our communities as part of the Paul Hamlyn Special Initiative Our Museum.

We asked 449 season ticket holders to take part and about one-third returned a questionnaire. When we compared the category of ticket purchased by respondents with all season ticket holders they were similar, so we believe the results here are reliable.

Findings

Our season ticket holders are evenly spread in terms of age but younger people (16-24yrs) are under-represented.

Most of our season ticket holder respondents are working full or part time with around 40% of them retired.

Season ticket holders say their main reason for purchasing a ticket is to support the Museum.

Most season ticket holders make use of their ticket all year round not just in our open season, and a typical number of visits is 9 per year. Most visit for between 1-3 hours each time they come.

Many season ticket holders refer to, and therefore value, our outdoors so we are more than a museum to them.

Season ticket holders also use their tickets for events and for school holiday activities.

The cafe and shop gain the highest ratings (rated as ‘very good’), with displays and exhibitions coming in third. The toilet facilities are lowest rated.

Season ticket holders would like a talks programme on the themes of: Wildlife & Environment; History; Rural Crafts. Their preference is for daytime talks.

Several season ticket holders have since become volunteers or helped us with further research.

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Recommendations

The full list of recommendations is on Page 20.

• Develop the strong support of season ticket holders by offering a membership scheme with a tiered range of member benefits and start to offer a ‘young persons’ membership.

• Funding permitting, consider developing more outdoor attractions that can be enjoyed year round and consider making more use of demonstration footage in our displays, e.g. on ‘e-labels’ or via an app.

• Use cost savings on season tickets for advertising purposes, i.e. “Most of our season ticket holders use their tickets for at least 9 visits saving them £x”. Use verbatim comments relating to walking, relaxing, children and peacefulness in marketing, e.g., on leaflets etc.

• Use the statistics from this and the general visitors survey to help us with funding bids as ‘evidence of a need or demand’, e.g. for updated displays and better facilities

• Trial talks on different themes at different times (and promote them to season ticket holders). Wildlife and Environment talks on Sat-Sun daytime, History talks on any daytime and Rural Crafts talks on a weekday evening.

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Introduction In 2013 the Museum of East Anglian Life embarked on a programme of visitor research in order to gain a better understanding of our visitors. This research is underpinned by our involvement in the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Our Museum special initiative1, which aims to facilitate a process of development and organisational change within museums and galleries that are committed to active partnership with their communities, with the ambition of affecting the museum sector more widely. Amongst other objectives, the Our Museum initiative will:

• support and develop museums to place community needs, values, aspirations and active collaboration at the core of their work

• involve communities and individuals in core decision-making processes and to implement the decisions taken

We need a better understanding of our visitors, one of the Museum’s many ‘communities’, as a first step to being able to increase their involvement in what we do.

We therefore set out to do two fairly comprehensive visitor surveys – one with general visitors to the site, and one to find out more about our most committed visitors, our season ticket holders. This is a report into the season ticket holders research; a report into the general visitor survey is due in December 2013.

1 http://ourmuseum.ning.com/

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In the main our 400 approx. season ticket holders are very local, with most clustered in and around Stowmarket, see maps below:

Please note that the interactive map can be accessed at https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=708129

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Season ticket sales have been increasing year on year (see chart below2), with a slight ‘blip’ in 2012 which was likely caused by interest in the imminent opening of a major new attraction at the Museum, Abbot’s Hall. Yet until this research we knew very little about our season ticket holders.

We wanted to find out more about their demographics (age, gender, working status, etc.) to see how they compare with the wider visitor population; as well as their motivations for buying a season ticket, visiting habits and preferences for future programming.

Anecdotally, staff at the Museum felt that many season tickets were sold to those who needed access across the site to get to/from the local primary school, or for dog walking – we wanted to know if this actually is the case.

Visitor Services staff were keen that we find out directly from season ticket holders which themes for talks are of most interest to them and what days and times are most convenient. This was because it is felt that season ticket holders are the most likely to attend talks given that the majority are quite local.

We also asked some general questions about the Museum facilities and its methods of interpreting collections – these findings and any useful verbatim comments will be fed into any future funding applications we make for major developments, and can be followed up with more detailed qualitative consultation with user groups including season ticket holders.

It should be noted that this survey was drawn up in a relatively short space of time and that if we were to repeat it we would attempt to align the questions more closely with some of those on the main visitor survey, which was developed later.

The data from this survey provides us with essential information which will help us with business objectives (maximising income through increased visits, by

2 Sales are to 17/09 for 2013 so show an incomplete year, they may increase a little

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Total number of season tickets sold 2010-2013

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attracting new visitors and by encouraging existing visitors to visit more frequently or to buy a season ticket); and also with research objectives (finding out more about visitors’ needs, wants and expectations in order to provide a better cultural offer).

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Methodology Each year in February, the Museum sends out email and postal reminders to existing season ticket holders reminding them of the opportunity to renew their season ticket at a 25% discount if they buy before the start of the season. With this year’s letter/email they were also sent a survey, see Appendix 1. The survey contained sixteen questions, which fell into three categories: ‘About You’; ‘About Your Visit’ and ‘About The Museum’.

Season ticket holders in 2012 totalled 449, so that is the total of surveys which were distributed by email or post. As an incentive, respondents could also choose to be entered into a draw for completing the survey where the cost of a ticket was refunded.

One member of staff also conducted this survey face to face on Stowmarket Free Day (the beginning of our season) which is when many season ticket holders renew their tickets in person at the Museum.

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Data Analysis and Results Out of the 449 surveys which were distributed, 135 were returned; a response rate of almost one-third. This is much better than previous attempts and is doubtless due to the incentive offered.

We might expect some bias in a self-completion sample like this (i.e. only those who feel strongly positive or negative will respond), but we still feel that the 135 responses give us a useful indication of our season ticket holders and their preferences. We did find that there were some questions where we had indicated that only one option should be selected, but some respondents chose more. In some instances respondents didn’t answer every question on the survey. There were also some respondents who had been sent a hard copy of the survey (those without an email address) that had only completed the front page, missing the second page out. We included all these results but these factors help explain any discrepancy in the totals.

The data was analysed by inputting the data from individual questionnaires into SurveyMonkey – for which we bought a temporary upgrade in order to make full use of its features. This was a time consuming process for the individuals involved and if we carry out further work in future it is recommended that we use SurveyMonkey for the whole process not just data analysis, as this would be easier for respondents and give us real time data analysis.

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‘About You’ Of the 135 surveys returned, 37 respondents were male, 97 female (almost three quarters of respondents). This may not reflect the gender of all season ticket holders of course, as it is fairly typical that surveys are completed by females in a mixed household.

Overall, the ages of season ticket holders were fairly evenly spread between three age groups:

Based on these results, people in the 16-24 age category are very under-represented so could be targeted with a specific ‘young person’s’ ticket to encourage them to become season ticket holders,

Regarding the employment of respondents, most were working either part time or full time (59), with a significant number of retired respondents (55) and those who care for the home or children. Again, we should not assume that this reflects the employment status of all season ticket holders as it may be that at-home mums were the ones completing the survey on behalf of their household.

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The majority of the Museum’s season ticket holders are not disabled; 90.4%.

The respondents to the survey were asked to state which category of ticket they purchased – as can be seen in the table below, they broadly represent the overall sales of season tickets this year, so we can be fairly confident that views represented in the survey are representative of all holders.

Category Survey respondents All tickets sold in 2013 Adult 6.% 10% Concession 26% 26% Joint 33% 34% Child (4-16) 3% 7% 2 adult Family 24% 18% 1 adult Family 13% 10%

When asked about their reason for buying a ticket, almost two thirds (64.6%) of our season ticket holders said the main reason they bought a ticket is to support the museum; 44.9% of season ticket holders bought their ticket to get free access to the Museum.

To get free access 44.9% To support the Museum 64.6% Other (please explain) 15.7%

The verbatim comments given for this question are in a Wordle word cloud below.

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This question could be said to be ‘leading’ (i.e. who wouldn’t say they wanted to support the Museum?) but we tried to alleviate that by asking respondents to select only the most important reason here. This result is really encouraging, as it shows that the Museum has a strong base of those who are loyal to the Museum and want to support it. There could be potential here for the Museum to make more of this, for example by offering a tier of membership options with a range of member benefits depending on price.

The verbatim comments also give us an insight into what season ticket holders value about the museum – answers relating to walking, relaxing, children and peacefulness figure here – and these could be useful for marketing the Museum, e.g. by using them as quotes on leaflets etc.

‘About Your Visit’ We asked respondents how they use their season tickets – to find out whether holders tend to only visit during our open season (March-November) and to what extent our events programme is the reason for buying their ticket. Respondents could therefore give multiple responses to the question.

Access grounds for dog walking 16.8% 22 Access grounds for school run 10.7% 14 Visit the Museum during the open season 55.7% 73 Visit the Museum throughout the year 82.4% 108 To attend specific events 41.2% 54

It is interesting to note that the two options of dog walking and school run have the lowest responses – so our assumption of these being major reasons for becoming a season ticket holder were not correct. In the recent past Museum visitor services staff had visited the local school to give a talk and explain that season tickets were required to access the Museum grounds for the school run. This had initially met with some resistance, mainly because it disadvantaged those who needed to buy a ticket in September (for a child just starting school) who would not then be able to take advantage of the 25% new season discount. To overcome this, we now offer a 6-month season ticket which takes new holders through to March at which point they can purchase a discounted full year ticket.

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One of our Senior Museum Assistants notes that this has had a dual positive outcome – not only in improving the take up of season tickets amongst the school run families, but also that these people have then fed back to us that they use the ticket for more involved visits to the Museum.

It is also encouraging to note that the majority of season ticket holders visit all year round, not just in the open season. This would imply that season ticket holders do not come just for the displays in buildings (which, with the exception of Abbot’s Hall, are closed during the winter) but that they come for the outdoors too. It might be possible to attract more season ticket holders by further developing more outdoor attractions that can be enjoyed year round.

We asked respondents to name the events they attended if they selected the option ‘to attend specific events’. This was partly to see which events are most valued (useful if, for example, we were thinking of planning more of the same or of stopping a particular event). Of the 54 who gave this response, only 17 mentioned specific events by name. Verbatim comments have been put into a Wordle word cloud below. The most popular events were those with music or crafts (Steam and Crafts weekend; Traditional Music Day), and the Beer Festival. School holiday activities also figure quite large here so are clearly valued. These responses tally with overall attendance figures, i.e. the events mentioned attract the largest audiences and we already know these are popular. It is interesting though, that May Day and the Blues Festival which are also quite busy events are not mentioned as often by season ticket holders which might suggest that those events are attracting more general audiences or a specific audience that doesn’t have a season ticket, or that for whatever reason, season ticket holders are less aware of them. Countryside at War was not frequently mentioned here but that is to be expected as it had only run once at the time of the data collection.

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With hindsight, it might have been useful to have used this questionnaire to gain more in-depth feedback on events such as which are considered best, how we could improve them and to gain suggestions for other events that season ticket holders would like to see here. This could be incorporated into future surveys but getting visitor feedback on the day of events from all visitors is also important.

When season ticket holders were asked to estimate how many times they visit per year their responses ranged from 3 to 300! The mean (average) number of visits of season ticket holders to the Museum in a year once the high extremes had been removed was 17. The median (mid point) of the results was 10, and the mode (most frequently observed) was 6. We removed the extremely high numbers as we felt these were likely to be the dog walkers and school run holders who access the site almost every day but are not actually making a visit. The results show that season ticket holders get great value for money – this could be converted into a cost saving for advertising purposes, i.e. “Most of our season ticket holders use their tickets for at least 9 visits saving them £x”.

Almost three-quarters of season ticket holders spent an average of between 1 and 3 hours on each visit they made last year (2012).

Under 30 mins 2.5% 30 mins - 1 hour 13.4% 1-2 hours 39.5% 2-3 hours 32.8% 3-4 hours 10.1% Over 4 hours 2.5%

This again is encouraging – in that it shows that season ticket holders stay for a reasonable amount of time rather than just popping in to waste some time, i.e. The Museum is a ‘destination’ for them on any given day that they visit.

‘About the Museum’ Respondents were asked to rate some of the Museum’s facilities and its displays. It should be noted here that we have asked for much more thorough feedback on these elements in the general visitors survey which is due to report in December 2013.

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As expected, there is room for improvement in all of the areas listed. It is tempting to lump together respondents who tick ‘good’ with those who tick ‘very good’ but these results should be looked at more closely. When survey respondents don’t select the most favourable option, it usually shows they think there is some room for improvement.

The shop and the cafe have the highest proportions of respondents selecting ‘very good’ , both with over 50% of respondents selecting this option, which indicates a high degree of satisfaction.

Exhibitions and displays gain the next highest proportion of ‘very good’ selection, but also have a large number of respondents selecting ‘good’ – this is consistent with the Museum’s current situation where we have a brand new HLF funded set of exhibitions in Abbot’s Hall, alongside outdated displays which have not been updated for a number of years.

The ratings for signage are interesting and could merit further investigation – this could be done by means of visitor tracking to see if there are specific areas or points during the visit where signage does not meet visitors’ needs, or by further qualitative research with both first time and regular visitors. There is a possibility that some respondents interpret ‘signage’ as what we would call display interpretation, or might be referring to directional signage in the town and surrounding area, so this would need to be clarified.

As we might expect, the rating for our toilet facilities is low, and we expect this to be borne out by the larger general visitor survey. Apart from Abbot’s Hall toilets the facilities across the site are not of an excellent standard and we would seek to upgrade these in the next period of development at the Museum. Gaining this feedback from regular visitors should help us back up any funding bids with

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Toilet facilities

Cafe

Shop

Exhibitions and displays

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Poor

OK

Good

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‘evidence of a need or demand’. We could also be more upfront about the areas of the Museum that get a low rating and acknowledge this in signage in the area along the lines of signs you see in shops that are undergoing a redisplay ‘Please excuse our appearance. This area is due for an upgrade in[xx]’ This would also raise awareness (and therefore funds possibly) of future capital projects.

Verbatim comments from this question were as follows:

SIGNAGE • Could use symbols on signs to provide treasure hunt. • Don't like looking at the sign from bedroom window about the toilets and

the cars. • Noticed improvements last year • More advertising needed. • Been so many times we don't look for signs so don't know!

TOILETS

• Need to be warmer, cleaner, renewed. • Very cold, particularly for nappy changing, floors often dirty • Cold • Excellent • Never used them • Cold in winter! • Limited access in grounds. Rather basic near Osier. • Need more toilets near the cafe • Very basic • Not used

CAFE

• Good food, friendly staff. Could be a bit cheaper for families. • Never used • Excellent food, good value & child friendly • Small kids portions • Limited, overpriced • Two suggestions; an undercover picnic area and more bins on site. Thank

you. • Nice & quiet • Never used • Need more toilets near the cafe • Not as good as it used to be

SHOP

• Lots to see and buy about Suffolk.

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• I presume you mean FRIENDS shop; Tourist Information Centre would be good

• Good range of prices • Not used

EXHIBITIONS & DISPLAYS

• Need more interactive displays to get children and families involved. Abbot's Hall Outstanding. The way forward. Bringing culture and historical identity back to Stowmarket. I've taken family and friends from miles away to see it.

• Outdoor displays (machines) need sprucing up a bit. • Huts need re-vamp & change around of display items. • Varied - Abbot's Hall good, farm machinery poor • Abbot's Hall - excellent • Very interesting. • Abbot's Hall latest technology - not all have this. • We use the museum grounds for walking. Can't really comment on the rest!

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Question 11 asked visitors how they like to find out about our collections in future (i.e. what forms of interpretation they’d prefer). Respondents could choose up to three options.

The highest response was demonstrations of equipment by others (80 out of 116 respondents chose this). The next two most popular options chosen were costumed staff or actors in character (64 out of 116) and other ‘hands-on’ interactives. There were five comments; four of these comments gave the reason for their choices as it would make it more fun for children to learn. These responses show the importance of live demonstrations to a rural life museum such as ours – and backs up our plans to increase the frequency and range of demonstrations at the Museum, such as the Mill team. We might also consider making more use of footage in our displays, e.g. filming demonstrations when they do happen so that the footage can be shown on e-labels in (for example) the Mill or the Forge on the days when demonstrators are not present, or be made into an app. Whilst there is obviously a cost implication here, it could be done at relatively low cost and would be one-off although maintenance would be an issue. This would significantly improve the visitor experience for those who don’t catch demonstrations.

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Question 12 asked season ticket holders about talks – both their preference for themes and times.

The most popular subjects for talks were Wildlife and Environment, History and Rural Crafts – all of which were selected by more than 50% of respondents who answered this question. Of those selecting ‘Other’, comments mainly related to their preferred times rather than to a topic with one respondent each mentioning ‘beekeeping, chicken keeping’, and having ‘child-friendly talks’.

The most popular time for a talk was daytimes – either on a Saturday or Sunday daytime (55% of responses), followed by Monday to Friday daytime (36%). Weekend evenings were by far the least preferred times. We currently run our talks programme on weekday evenings so could trial some daytime talks (and promote them to season ticket holders) to see if these preferences are borne out in actual attendances.

We then cross-tabulated the top three preferred themes with the preference for times. For Wildlife and Environment and for History talks the time preference followed the overall pattern, i.e. Saturday or Sunday daytime was preferred, followed by Monday to Friday daytime (Saturday or Sunday daytime was a much stronger preference for Wildlife & Environment than for History). However, for the third most popular theme Rural Crafts – the preference was almost evenly split between Sat-Sun daytime, Mon-Fri daytime and Mon-Fri evening.

Therefore we could deduce, although the numbers are small, that it would be worth trialling Wildlife and Environment talks on Sat-Sun daytime, History talks on any daytime and that Rural Crafts talks could take place on a weekday evening.

Our final question gathered emails of respondents who wanted to further their involvement with the Museum beyond their season ticket either by volunteering,

0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% 70.0% 80.0%

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becoming more involved in further market research or by receiving an e-Newsletter should we produce one.

Volunteering 9 responses e-Newsletter 80 responses Market Research 68 responses

Since the research was carried out all those who wanted to volunteer have been contacted and some have since become visitor services volunteers. We also invited those who had given consent to join us for two different pieces of market research – one a focus group investigating commercial opportunities for the Museum (venue hire, corporate days out, etc.) and one some qualitative research investigating family attitudes to interpretation of our steam engines in the Mortlock building.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Conclusions

This survey was a really useful and important piece of research for us. It has given us a far greater insight than we had previously into our most loyal supporters. This has helped us with outcomes under the Our Museum initiative: putting communities’ needs at the core of our work, involving communities and individuals in decision making processes and implementing the decisions taken.

We have found out that season ticket holders have a strong sense of supporting the Museum and do not buy their tickets purely to access the site for purposes other than visiting. We also know now how often they use their tickets, for what purposes and have some specific information about their preferences for our talks programme.

Partly as a result of carrying out this survey, the Museum will be changing its season ticket scheme to a Membership programme, offering tiered support packages with extra benefits for each tier. We are working on this at the moment and hope to launch it for the 2014 season.

We have also recruited new volunteers from our season ticket holder community – they have moved along a ‘pathway of participation’3. In addition a couple of season ticket holders were involved in some focus group work that was carried out by an external agency to investigate the Museum’s capacity to generate income from venue hire, etc. And finally, one of our trainees recruited some of our season ticket holders to carry out some qualitative research into their attitudes

3 http://pathwaysthroughparticipation.org.uk/

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towards re-interpretation of our steam engines in the Mortlock building. She invited family groups in for an ‘accompanied visit’ observing the families’ behaviour and recording their conversations, then discussed plans for a re-display with them. Her findings will be used to re-interpret that area of the site so that it is more family friendly.

We have learnt about more than just our season ticket holders... When conducting further research in future we should sign up to SurveyMonkey at the outset and conduct all the data collection via their website. This would create a more streamlined piece of research and allow us to report on and circulate our findings much more quickly.

It would be good to include a few more event-specific questions, such as ‘if you have attended our events, which one is your favourite and why?’ ‘How could we improve them?’ ‘Any events you want to see take place that aren’t already being run?’ This would help us tailor and improve upon our events.

We should have been clearer in the wording of some of our questions: TIC shop or the Friends shop; signage meaning our way-finding on site, or road signs approaching the Museum; rating separate areas of the site e.g. the toilets in Abbot’s Hall, toilets near cafe, etc. Generally we should aim to make the questions used in all surveys comparable but this season ticket holders survey was put together quickly before we had formulated the general visitors survey.

Recommendations 1. Target 16-24 year olds with a specific ‘young person’s’ ticket to encourage

them to become season ticket holders. 2. Capitalise on the strong support of season ticket holders by offering a

membership scheme with a tiered range of member benefits. 3. Use verbatim comments relating to walking, relaxing, children and

peacefulness in marketing, e.g., on leaflets etc. 4. Develop more outdoor attractions that can be enjoyed year round as

season ticket holders appreciate and use the outdoor elements of the Museum at least as much as the indoor displays.

5. As well as the larger scale events (Steam & Crafts weekend, Traditional Music Day, Beer Festival), season ticket holders value our school holiday activities – these should be maintained and built on.

6. May Day and the Blues Festival (and Countryside at War though this is a new event) are less frequently mentioned by season ticket holders, we could market these more strongly to this audience or aim to recruit more season ticket holders from audiences at the events.

7. Use cost savings on season tickets for advertising purposes, i.e. “Most of our season ticket holders use their tickets for at least 9 visits saving them £x”.

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8. Our signage might merit further investigation, e.g. by visitor tracking to see if there are specific areas or points during the visit where signage does not meet visitors’ needs. We need to cross check this with the general visitors survey results before embarking on further research.

9. Use the statistics from this and the general visitors survey to help us with funding bids as ‘evidence of a need or demand’, e.g. for updated displays, e-labels, and better toilet facilities.

10. Be more upfront about what our plans are in the areas of the Museum that get a low rating and acknowledge this in signage, e.g. ‘Please excuse our appearance. This area is due for an upgrade in[xx]’ This could also be used to help raise awareness of (and potentially raise funds for) future capital projects.

11. Consider making more use of demonstration footage in our displays, e.g. filming demonstrations and showing these on e-labels in (for example) the Mill and the Forge.

12. Trial running talks on different themes at different times (and promote them to season ticket holders). Wildlife and Environment talks on Sat-Sun daytime, History talks on any daytime and that Rural Crafts talks on a weekday evening. .

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Season ticket holders survey 2013 Thank you for buying a season ticket which helps to support the Museum’s work. We are carrying out a survey of all season ticket holders to find out more about you, and to help us with future plans here. Please complete and return this questionnaire, either by post or email. One lucky respondent will get their 2013 season ticket FREE OF CHARGE. We will notify you by email or phone if you are the lucky respondent whose name is drawn out of the hat on 20th March 2013. ABOUT YOU 1. Are you? Male Female

2. Which age group are you in? 16-24 [Select one only] 25-44 45-64 65 and over

3. Which of these best describes you? [Select one only]

Working full time Carer for home or children Working part time Temporarily unable to work

Retired Permanently unable to work Unemployed Full time education

4. Do you consider yourself to be disabled under the Equality Act 2010? Yes No [The Act defines disability as 'physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on your ability to perform normal day-to-day activities'] YOUR SEASON TICKET 5. What type of season ticket have you bought? [Select one only]

Adult Child (4-16) Concession 2 adult Family

Joint 1 adult Family 6. What is your main reason for buying a season ticket? To get free access

[Select one only] To support the Museum Other

Please explain: 7. How do you use, or intend to use, your season ticket? [Select all that apply]

Access grounds for dog walking Access grounds for school run

To visit the Museum during the open season To visit the Museum throughout year To attend specific events

Please state which: Other

Please explain:

APPENDIX 1 – Season ticket holder questionnaire, March 2013

Season ticket holders survey 2013 YOUR VISITS 8. Approximately how many times per year would you say you visit? 9. What is the average amount of time you spend during a visit? [Select one only]

Under 30 minutes 2-3 hours 30 mins – 1 hour 3-4 hours

1-2 hours Over 4 hours 10. How would you rate the following?:

Very good

Good OK Poor Very poor

Comments

Signage Toilet facilities Cafe Shop Exhibitions and displays 11. Thinking about how you find out about our objects and collections when you visit, which of these would you most like to use or see in future? [Select up to three]

Demonstrations of equipment by others Computer interactives including film/audio Being able to use equipment myself Other ‘hands-on’ interactives

Costumed staff or actors in character Smartphone apps Other

Please explain: FUTURE PLANNING 12a. We are developing a programme of talks. Please let us know which, if any, of these talks would be of interest. [Select all that apply]

Gardens/Gardening Wildlife/Environment History Exhibitions

Items from the Collection Rural Crafts Other

Please explain: 12b. When would be the best time for you to attend a talk?

Saturday or Sunday - daytime Monday-Friday daytime Saturday or Sunday - evening Monday-Friday evening

13. Would you be interested in volunteering for us in any of these roles?

Visitor Services – general demonstrator Visitor Welcome assistant Visitor Services – craft demonstrator Visitor Services – watermill demonstrator

14. Please give your email address and consent for contact Prize draw (tick to enter) e-Newslettter (1 per mth max.)

15.Would you be interested in getting involved in further market research for Yes No us when we develop new ideas and exhibitions?

APPENDIX 1 – Season ticket holder questionnaire, March 2013