US-based exhibition designer Mark Walhimer recently conducted a survey of exhibition costs – the results are here, based on 59 responses. For those of you interested in benchmarks of exhibition costs (i.e. quantifying the length of a piece of string!), this will be an interesting read.
Now while the responses may not be representative of the museum sector as a whole, there are some particularly noteworthy points:
- There is more than an order of magnitude of difference between the lowest cost and most expensive exhibitions. Prices range from $25/sq.ft. to $600/sq.ft (roughly $270 – $6450 / sq.m). Having costed up exhibitions myself, I wonder whether these prices all include the same thing. (I can’t imagine the lower price range includes the full interior fit-out of a space and can only guess that the flooring, lighting, etc doesn’t change or isn’t included in these budgets, only the specific displays)
- Science centres are the most expensive exhibitions – there were no science centres below $100/sq.ft. and this category included the most expensive exhibits at $600/sq.ft. Most fell somewhere around the $300-$400 mark. This is no great surprise as science centres tend to have more interactive exhibits and immersive elements which are expensive to design and build.
- Children’s museums were the cheapest, with all of the exhibitions being at or below $250/sq.ft. Children’s museums have a lot of interactives too, but maybe these fall more into the ‘cheap and cheerful’ category? Also children’s museums tend to have exhibits more spaced out (based on my anecdotal experience anyway), so this might reduce the cost on a per sq.ft. basis.
- History museums fell somewhere in the middle, ranging from $50-$400 per sq.ft..
There are also figures for breakdowns of in-house versus contracted design and construction, and design costs as a proportion of the overall budget.
The survey results overall are distilled into a pithy snapshot:
The average 6000 square foot History Museum, Science Center, Children’s Museum and Traveling exhibitions are $204 per square foot with 17% spent on research, design and exhibit development.
That translates to around $2195 / sq.m. (I feel more at home in metric territory), or a ballpark of around $2000/sq.m. This seems to be an incredibly sticky ballpark figure, surprisingly resistant to time or units of currency. I remember GBP2000/ sq.m. being the ‘rule of thumb’ costing that was regularly used in the UK – over a decade ago! Then when I came back to Australia 4 years ago the same ballpark of $2000-$2500 / sqm still seemed to most people to feel about right as a costing guesstimate. Now it seems that it still holds true.
So why are exhibition design costs seemingly resistant to currency changes and inflation? Or are they? (Let’s face it, it’s a somewhat arbitrary midpoint in a VERY broad spectrum). Perhaps the costs of certain types of exhibits have gone down (software and IT hardware in particular). Maybe 10 years ago was a bit of an aberration (millennium fever and all), and things have calmed down a bit since. Or have exhibition developers got more savvy about extracting the most out of every dollar of the budget?
Hi Regan,
Great write up! I believe you mean $200USD per square foot (not $2000USD)
-Mark
Thanks Mark.
I’ve added units to make my meaning a bit clearer. I feel more comfortable thinking in square metres so have converted the figures. Hopefully I haven’t missed any.
Hi Regan,
Very useful article. I suspect some reasons for the pricing per sq metre has remained farily constant include:
-Costs for large scale printing have reduced substantially over a couple of decades.
-Also when a museum or science centre opens it may opt for expensive long-lasting materials, such as stainless steel, in displays whereas subsequent displays are made if less durable and cheaper materials.
-Also new ranges of construction materials are available now that weren’t around 20 years ago and may be durable and cost effective.
-Electronics and IT has become more powerful without increases in prices.
-Monitors have become flatter and cheaper which simplify display fit-out.
In contrast I wonder whether prices for large glass showcases have increased? Labour costs for display development have risen but they may not be factored into cost per metre.
Hi Jesse,
Very good points.
About what’s factored into the cost of an exhibition – this is something that is notoriously difficult to pin down. Definition of what counts as ‘the exhibition’ vary, and I suspect a lot of the costs of in-house design and construction are absorbed into other budget lines, making it hard to tease out.
Actually, come to think of it, that might be another reason why start-up museums are relatively more expensive – in an operating museum, a lot of the planning and development time can get absorbed in the day-to-day staffing costs (I know some museum staff ‘charge’ their time to an exhibition project in their timesheets but bear with me here). For a start up, such staff don’t exist and the work is either entirely contracted out, or is done by a team which is specifically employed to do the job. Either way, it’s coming out of the exhibition budget pot.
Hi Regan: Thanks for your research, all those years ago! Have you, or anyone else in Australia, attempted a fresh calculation for the Australian scene? It would be a very helpful resource.
Hi Margaret, I’m afraid I have no idea how this has progressed in the intervening years … My life has headed in a number of different directions since I did this work ?
Thanks Regan – all understood! Good luck in your new roles.