Unlocking Hidden Value and Supercharging Visitor Engagement

Visitors playing Augmented Reality trails in Ben Uri Gallery, London

Museums provide food for the soul. They are a nexus for past and present and anchor points for our collective cultural memories. They are the closest thing to time travel — without the need to step into a DeLorean.

But it’s often easy to take history at face value. Familiarity breeds disinterest — when you’ve seen one crumbling Sumerian statue, you’ve seen them all. How do you jazz up ancient history for tech-savvy generations with increasingly short attention spans?

Enter Gamar, an Augmented Reality (AR) platform that re-engages visitors with a fresh perspective on history and helps revitalise museum business models. In this blog, we demonstrate how Gamar can help public attractions unlock hidden value.

1. Increase engagement

In an age of instant gratification, Wikipedia and immersive online experiences, it’s a valid feat that museums may lose relevance in the eyes of younger generations desensitised by information overload. Millennials and Gen-Xers have higher expectations — they value the personal touch and experiences tailored specially to them, many of which can be had from the comfort of a bedroom.

‘The Great Explorer’ game being played on the Great Map at the National Maritime Museum, London

Gamar increases footfall by grabbing and holding the attention of digital natives and incentivises visits to physical locations. Still a relatively new and novel platform, the app draws guests in with games and easily accessible information that dramatically increases dwell times, and consequently museum revenues. The longer a guest visits an attraction, the higher the revenue.

2. Save time

Budget cuts and understaffing drain innovation and creativity when galleries need it most. The Gamar platform saves museum employees’ time by providing easy-to-create and manage games and tours, which replace the need for dated, expensive and intrusive audio guides.

Visitors playing ‘Tudor House’ trail at the Margate Museum, Margate

All you need is a smartphone or tablet. The Gamar content management system is incredibly user-friendly and anyone can create a unique gallery trail within minutes using the interface. A variety of activities and AR animations are available to immediately use — all you need to do is:

1. Scan
2. Create
3. Publish
4. Play!

Margate Museum, a relatively small museum with limited resources, took advantage of Gamar’s platform to add a new layer of value to its attractions, giving visitors fresh incentives to return. The Gamar experience acts as a virtual tour guide, providing immersive storytelling without the need for a paid tour or audio guide — and works in multiple languages.

3. Marketing Boost

Museum marketing departments are always looking for added value, new messages and innovative ways to present their exhibitions from different perspectives. Very recently they have begun to fully appreciate the power of handheld technology to unlock and maximise the experience visitors can enjoy at museums and other real-world attractions.

A panel in the Egyptian gallery at The British Museum informing visitors on how to download and play ‘Animals of Early Egypt’ game

Real-time engagement data generated by the app helps museum marketers optimise their attractions, maximise the value of their assets and come up with new ideas. The possibilities are endless…

4. Return visits

Gamar enables museums to tell the story of their artefacts in different, more engaging ways. Our USP provides a unique basis for creating new experiences, original stories and leveraging existing attractions to show the deeper layers of history and meaning hidden beneath the surface.

British Museum’s channel on the Gamar mobile app with different games that visitors can play in the Egyptian and Greek Parthenon galleries

The British Museum chose Gamar to provide new ways for visitors to explore its galleries, allowing for a different kind of learning experience while remaining rooted in the power of objects to inspire and engage audiences.

Gamar’s app literally gamifies the learning process, inspiring visitors and students alike through a sense of accomplishment. Its technology triggers interactive, AR experiences that are played through smartphones and tablets, using geolocation to lure visitors to locations with in-situ games or tours.

5. The Hololens experience (the lure of new tech)

With Hololens experiences, the world is brought to life with an extra dimension of mixed reality.

Visitors playing a Gamar Hololens experience at the Sea Life London Aquarium

“Our technology maps real-world environments as data, from all angles, enabling us to create and superimpose digital experiences that are natural and that interact with their surroundings,” explains Venu Tammabatula, Founder of Gamar.

Gamar’s game creation platform empowers organisations and brands to design and publish their own trails and games, through which they’ll be able to engage customers and visitors on a whole new level. Explore how it works for your objects and spaces.