Museums + Heritage Show announces packed programme for May event

The Museums + Heritage Show 2017 will bring together hundreds of museums professionals – including more than 50 free insightful talks – and 150 suppliers under one roof at Olympia London on May 17 and 18.

The show’s contents are themed by specialist areas of interest including: collections management, learning, visitor marketing and insight; retail and trading; new tech; volunteer management; fundraising; exhibition design and interpretation as well as sector updates from HLF, ACE, AIM and ICOM UK.

Some of the highlights will include a talk on the social media strategy behind 14-18 NOW’s We’re Here Because We’re Here which saw thousands of volunteers dressed up as WWI soldiers across towns and cities in the UK as a memorial to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme, where 19,240 men were killed on the first day of the battle in 1916.

There will be Top ten tips for museum learning on a budget, which will explain where museum professionals can find the information they are looking for to run education and outreach programmes. DIY interactives will give practical findings from 10 West Midlands museums on building engaging digital experiences. In the Fundraising stream one of the talks will be 50 Ways to Make Your Shop Work Harder For You, which will offer practical tips on offers, visual merchandising, product development, location, appearance and staff management.

Volunteering in the sector will also be well-covered by a number of talks including: The Future of Volunteering – Sustainability and Your Museum where Claire Sully of Volunteer Makers will show how museums can maximise the economic opportunity of volunteers while also creating a real value exchange.

As well as this there will be talks from leading sector organisations such as The Arts Council’s What’s in a Review? Where Liz Johnson will talk about the six key areas of the Museums Review, which is scheduled to be published by DCMS in June/July 2017.

There will be a HLF session on Collecting Now, which will focus on support for collections development, including early evaluation findings from the latest Collecting Cultures Programme and a session from AIM entitled Helping Your Organisation Prosper.

ICOM UK will also be giving a talk on its Working Internationally in a Post-Brexit World conference, which moves the conversation forward on how the UK leaving the EU will affect museums.

The Expert Zone at the show will provide a free and easy ways to get advice from some of the key associations in the sector and the new Museum Match area has been created as an opportunity for museum professionals to find the perfect partner, consultant, adviser, product or service. There will also be masterclasses and demonstrations from some of the 150 companies exhibiting at the show.

For the third year running Museums + Heritage is offering a £1,000 prize fund open to all organisations to boost a project they are working on or planning. Last year’s winners, The Almonry Museum in Evesham has created historic photo albums and an outreach project with organisations such as the Alzheimer’s Society.

The Museums + Heritage Show takes place at Olympia London on 17-18 May. To register your free place at the show click here.