Why Garfield Park Conservatory Uses VAMONDE for its Digital Tour Guide offering
The Need for Digital Wayfinding and Information Sharing
Garfield Park Conservatory is one of the largest greenhouse conservatories in the nation. The number of visitors to the museum has grown year after year, but the increasing attendance made it difficult to engage with each visitor and ensure that they experience the space, the plants and the stories they have to tell to their fullest potential.
Mattie Wilson (Director of Programs and Interpretation at Garfield Park Conservatory) was seeking a solution to this problem. A new exhibit installed in 2018 contained many pieces spread out over 10 acres of space. Mattie’s challenge was to provide a holistic, engaging experience for an exhibition of this size. She chose to explore technology options that could achieve her goal of exposing visitors to all the pieces featured.
Exploring the Tech Options
Mattie tried Oncell, a provider of mobile apps and tours for cultural institutions, to build this and other tours for their different exhibits and events. Limitations of the Oncell platform, including the limited view of locations on one map and the lack of downloads and views, led Mattie to the realization that the value from Oncell was not worth the investment in time and resources.
A technology solution that blends in-depth storytelling & GPS wayfinding.
To fulfill the goal of creating unique experiences for their different audiences, Mattie turned to VAMONDE to create separate experiences that would allow visitors to be in the space and use GPS and wayfinding to experience their new exhibit, Layers of Light, in 2019. Mattie spent 30 minutes with the VAMONDE team to learn the platform and then began creating her digital tour.
“The platform is easy to use and work within,” Mattie said. “It creates visually appealing tours on both web and mobile. There is a great deal of support, guidance, and troubleshooting from the VAMONDE team. It was also easy to jump in and get started,” she added.
In a few weeks, Mattie published content on two recent exhibits: Garfield Park Conservatory: Art and Architecture and Garfield Park Conservatory: Layers of Light. She released these self-guided tours to web and mobile and used precise coordinates to highlight the exact locations of individual plants. These self-guided tours allowed visitors to navigate the Garfield Park Conservatory and learn more about the plants, space, science, and conservation through interactive videos, stories, and pictures.
Garfield Park Conservatory Connects with their Visitors in Impactful Way
In a few weeks, Mattie was able to build two separate digital tours that helped meet her goals of engaging with visitors. By creating content about the different plants and places across the 10-acre space, she was able to provide a personalized experience to every visitor as the number of visitors has snowballed since the past year.
After publishing, Mattie directed users to these digital tours using a variety of media. To share the Layers of Light & Art and Architecture tours, Garfield Park Conservatory and VAMONDE used Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, via both organic and paid posts and campaigns. In addition to social outreach, Garfield Park used web placement and physical signage to bring people to the mobile experience available on VAMONDE. The campaigns resulted in more than 10,000 people reached on social media and over 1,000 views of the content on web and mobile in just the first three weeks. Mattie was pleased with these results, which showed a strong start in views and reach with VAMONDE. She understands that these numbers will continue to grow as users become familiar with the technology and the stories that Garfield Park Conservatory is publishing.
Mattie’s current focus is to create content for the adult audiences that visit the Garfield Park Conservatory. In the future, they plan to expand their digital experiences to enhance educational programming and field trips.
Learn more about VAMONDE, a digital experience platform for attractions. Visit info.vamonde.com or contact kartik@vamonde.com for more information.
