The cultural field has been among those sectors that have been heavily affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. In Europe, museums closed in March of 2020. All of a sudden, these institutions were left without substantial income usually generated via entrance fees, museum shop sales, and museum cafe earnings. The financial struggle of many of these museums was even worsened if they had planned a large exhibition, a so-called blockbuster exhibition.

Blockbusters exhibitions

This term originates from the field of film studies and has been around since the second half of the twentieth century. Since it indicates financial success, oftentimes it is used negatively in the museum field as it is being looked at as too commercial. Blockbusters became popular when there was a need to generate revenue after cultural subsidies were limited in the 1970s and museums were looking for a way to survive. For a long time, blockbusters were the domain of the biggest, most renowned institutions. However, recently, with the boom of the museum sector that took place in the decade before 2020, plenty of smaller, middle-sized museums of regional significance began to host their own blockbusters. That is thanks to the ability of blockbusters to attract plenty of visitors. As a result, many smaller institutions grew significantly regarding the number of annual visitors.

However, when Covid-19 disrupted the world, blockbuster exhibitions were among the most affected. This was thanks to the blockbuster's main attributes. In a world where travel was replaced with lockdowns and crowded public spaces with self-isolation, blockbusters (characterised by their traveling nature and ability to attract large crowds) no longer had a place.  Thus, most of the blockbusters that were scheduled to open in 2020 and 2021 had to be either postponed, cancelled, or be only partially opened; which had very adverse financial effects on museums that invested large sums of money years ahead in order to organize them.

The Dutch Museum Association

All of these changes to the museum sector (and specifically blockbuster exhibitions) were so unprecedented and impactful that in the early summer of 2020, just after the first wave of coronavirus was over, The Dutch Museum Association (or Museumvereniging ) wished to investigate the initial impact of the pandemic on blockbuster exhibitions. 

Many professionals in the field assumed that the corona crisis would lead to an end of blockbusters. Museums were assumed to be financially exhausted and it was expected that they would have to limit their budgets and adjust to a much smaller number of visitors. It was also expected that they would have to depend on their own stable collections to a much larger extent. And that there will not be a need for large exhibitions anymore as they will be too expensive to organise and there won't be enough visitors to actually see them. This was the initial hypothesis of the project. 

Methodology

20 Dutch museums of various sizes located in different regions across the country were approached to participate in our research of which 14 museums agreed to join. These museums included the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Van Gogh Museum, but also the Groninger Museum, the Fries Museum, and others (see map).  We typified the participating museums and categorized them into groups based on their sizes, the nature of their collections, the usual main source of subsidies, etc. We performed desk research and held structured interviews with museum representatives to investigate details regarding the Covid-19 crisis and the impact it had on their institutions. We also looked at how and from where they received their emergency money (government, private sponsors, entrance fees..) during the covid crisis.  We asked about the visitor numbers before the pandemic and during, their financial situations, and also about their future plans. Will they accommodate blockbusters in the upcoming few years? Do they want to? Are they able to?

Results

So what were the results and findings? Is the Covid-19 pandemic the end of blockbuster exhibitions in the Netherlands? The short answer is - no. At least not for all blockbusters in all types of museums. Some of the main findings of the research projects have shown that:

•       During corona, blockbusters were prolonged, postponed, cancelled, or temporarily turned away from, however, museums seem to wish to return to their old ways;
•   Some museums seemed to benefit from the crisis financially;
•   Medium-sized museums that organise blockbusters are more vulnerable than the large ones regarding financial and existential risks; among these major institutions, museums that display the collections owned by the government (Rijksmuseums) feel the most secure as they know they can depend on the system of support;
•       Institutions that can depend on their own strong collection do not necessarily stop having blockbusters with loans in times of crisis; and even if they choose not to organise blockbusters themselves, they still contribute to the blockbuster system as they loan out works;
•       Museums with less prominent collections need blockbusters to attract the desired number of visitors, while museums with world-renowned collections see the organisation of blockbusters as their 'duty';
•     Blockbusters do not always make a “profit”; while they can, this is not a rule, and it should be not depended upon;
• Opinions on whether online activities are a useful replacement of exhibitions are inconclusive; so is the consistency of the public engagement with it;

Takeaways

The blockbusters are here to stay - at least in the Netherlands. There may be fewer of them and fewer organisations will be able to afford them and take the risk. The ones that will continue to do so are those museums that enjoy continuous financial support by the government, the ones that have a good reputation, and their own strong collections. In other words, these are the museums that participated in the start of the blockbuster tradition more than fifty years ago. Since then,  blockbusters are deeply ingrained within the values and systems of the globalised and capitalised museum world. 

What do we have to thank for this persistence and seeming future of the blockbuster tradition? There is a sense of legacy, of pride in its institution. These major museums feel like they should represent the best of the best, and deliver an unseen combination of works, as they simply “owe it to its visitors.” There is also a sense of stubbornness and rigidness in the field. Museums were for long perceived as inflexible and overly resistant to change - and it seems that this has not changed, and it is something that contributes to their willingness to wait out the crisis and then return to their old ways. Nonetheless, it is not just a sense of pride, but also the security that the large important museums feel thanks to the support that they have received – before, and during the crisis. 

Thus, while blockbusters will prevail in major institutions, it will not be the case for the smaller ones, which used blockbusters in the last decade as a tool for audience growth. Smaller museums with regional significance without interesting temporary exhibitions may suffer big financial and audience losses. This may also result in the closures of smaller institutions, that is if they are not given enough support to survive. As a result, only the giants in the field might survive, which could lead to the monopolisation of the field and a more homogenous cultural landscape.

The article "The Future of Blockbuster Exhibitions After the Covid-19 Crisis: The Case of the Dutch Museum Sector" was co-authored by Kaja Jurčišinová, Marline Lisette Wilders, Janneke Visser, and published on the Museum International Journal on 1 April 2022.

For more information and details about this research project, go and read the full article at Museum International.