The operation comes alive And the market is on fire

Zhiyin Library has a collection of more than 2,000 pieces of ancient ceramics, more than 20,000 pieces of ancient books, paleontological fossils, miscellaneous items, etc. Courtesy of respondents

The Jiujiang Double Steaming Museum showcases the rice wine production equipment process. Courtesy of respondents

During the Qingming holiday that just passed, Foshan's "museum fever" continued to heat up. The Ancestral Temple Museum is full of tourists; in the Guangdong Daguan Museum, the bronze dings in the glass vitrines occasionally arouse a burst of "so beautiful" amazement from tourists.

These are just the epitome of Foshan's "museum fever". Since foshan built the "City of Museums" in 2017, the emerging museums have become one of the travel destinations for citizens and tourists. As of February this year, there are 150 museums (exhibition halls) in Foshan, of which 19 are non-state-owned museums that have been registered for the record. According to the "Guangdong Province 2020 Museum Development Report" released last year, Foshan ranked second in the province with the number of 16 non-state-owned museums, second only to Shenzhen.

As an important part of the public cultural service system, after these private museums are on fire, the problem of their survival has also become an unavoidable topic. How do they have different "living methods" with different themes and scales?

Southern Daily reporter Liu Ming

Private office assistance, paired with state-owned museums

Strolling through the streets and alleys of Foshan, you may be able to meet a museum unexpectedly, or with a certain site, a certain skill, a certain person, a certain history as the theme, every inch of people let people glimpse the city's thick history and human fireworks.

The Zhiyin Museum is one of them. It is located on the campus of Foshan No. 2 Middle School and was founded by teacher Su Yongshan. It was officially opened to the public in 2012. The museum has more than 2,000 pieces of ancient ceramics and more than 20,000 pieces of ancient books, paleontological fossils, miscellaneous items, etc., all of which are personal collections of Su Yongshan for more than ten years.

In the process of operation, private museums need a lot of funds to maintain. Many museums with strong financial resources will also fail after opening a few years because they cannot afford to operate huge amounts of money, and some private museums with meager funds will die prematurely. Considering this difficult point, Su Yongshan decided at the beginning of the establishment of the museum to abandon the traditional idea of running the museum, looking for a breakthrough - "civil office assistance", combined with his profession, the museum "opened" into the campus.

Su Yongshan introduced that the Zhiyin Museum receives more than 30,000 visitors every year, and before the epidemic, there were also campus groups from Hong Kong, Zhuhai, Guangzhou and other places every year. At present, the Zhiyin Museum has 4 full-time staff, 19 academic tutors, all of whom are active and retired professionals (volunteers), and no less than 50 volunteer docents per year, most of whom are students on campus.

"The site, water and electricity costs are the responsibility of the school, and other daily expenses are subsidized by the provincial, municipal and district levels, and some project research project bonuses and my personal pockets can basically maintain the normal operation of the museum." Su Yongshan said that later he founded a second campus branch library in Dongpo Primary School, "Zhixing Ancient Lamp Museum", which collects more than 1,000 pieces of various types of lamps and lanterns from all over the world and the dynasties of the mainland.

It is understood that Foshan City has issued the "Measures for the Management of Special Funds for the Construction of the City of Museums", which gives classified and graded subsidies to the four major "pain points" of new construction, reconstruction, operation and activities of non-state-owned museums, and the maximum subsidy that meets the conditions can be 2.5 million yuan. Various districts have also successively introduced supporting policies, among which the Nanhai District gives subsidies of 5 million yuan to 15 million yuan per year to non-state-owned museums that meet the requirements. From 2018 to 2021, Foshan invested a total of 34.34 million yuan in support funds, driving the private sector to invest more than 170 million yuan in the museum industry.

After the daily operation is basically guaranteed, how to carry out higher quality exhibition activities has become another issue that needs to be considered. "Now there are Chancheng District Museums 'pairing' with us, not only to keep in touch and answer the questions we encounter in our daily operations, but also to give priority to letting us participate when doing outreach." In Su Yongshan's view, this way of "pairing" with state-owned museums is conducive to private museums going farther and longer.

Create influence and output paid services for exhibitions

Guangdong Grand View Museum and Foshan Lingnan Finance Museum take another path, that is, mainly by exporting paid services for exhibitions to the outside world.

Ding Fangzhong, the director of the museum, calculated an account for the reporter: the museum site is provided free of charge by the Nanhai District Government; at present, there are more than 30 employees in the museum, including several graduate students, and the annual salary expenditure alone is more than 4 million yuan; there is also the cost of regularly collecting new cultural relics, as little as 4 million yuan a year, and as much as 8 million yuan a year; plus facility maintenance fees and security costs, etc., maintaining the normal operation of the museum is a big expense.

In addition to government subsidies and enterprise subsidies at all levels, the daily operation of Guangdong Grand View Museum and Foshan Lingnan Finance Museum mainly relies on the way of providing paid exhibition services. "After the country opened its popularity, many cities invited us to hold exhibitions, we provided services such as cultural relics and exhibition design, planning, etc., and they purchased services, which accounted for most of the museum's operating expenses." Ding Fangzhong introduced that the number of cooperative exhibitions is relatively large, and it has been scheduled to the following year. His own business provides 20 to 30% of the annual subsidies to museums.

To open up the national popularity, the museum itself needs to be "hard". Ding Fangzhong introduced that the total construction area of the museum is 3700 square meters, the collection of more than 12,000 pieces, most of which are the finest of similar cultural relics, especially the bronze mirrors and coins, of which 757 are national first-class cultural relics, which is currently the largest number of non-state-owned museums in China, and the precious cultural relics have reached 1452.

"'A thousand pavilions and one side' is not interesting, to do it to represent the highest level of a certain category, and to make characteristics, so as to go out of Foshan and form a national and even worldwide influence." Ding Fangzhong said that more than a year after the opening of the Guangdong Grand View Museum and the Lingnan Finance Museum in Foshan In 2018, it attracted 510,000 people and about 350 social groups to visit. Today, the museum, together with the Datang West City Museum in the northwest and the Jianchuan Museum in the southwest, is recognized as the three major private museums in China.

In Ding Fangzhong's view, continuously expanding the influence of the museum by collecting high-quality new cultural relics, obtaining more cooperation opportunities, and collecting more new cultural relics through the funds obtained through the output of paid exhibition services, this is an important way for the museum to form a virtuous circle of development.

"Museum +" to create an industrial chain

In Foshan, including Ding Fangzhong, many private museums and corporate museums rely on enterprises to provide part of the subsidies, and the Jiujiang Double Steaming Museum uses the "museum +" method to create an industrial chain, which not only realizes the self-hematopoietic function of the museum, but also feeds the enterprise.

It is understood that in 2009, the traditional brewing technology of Jiujiang Double Distillery was selected as the "Intangible Cultural Heritage of Guangdong Province"; in September of the same year, the Jiujiang Double Distillery Museum was completed and opened to the public, becoming the first rice wine theme museum in China at that time. Today, the total construction area of the museum has exceeded 10,000 square meters, and it receives about 100,000 visitors a year.

At present, the Jiujiang Double Steaming Museum belongs to the independent subsidiary of the head office and has begun to operate independently. "At present, our museum has developed more than a dozen products for sale as special souvenirs around the wine culture, and the more successful products are lees peanuts and Cantonese green plum wine, and many tourists leave the museum with these special products in their hands." Huang Yongxia, director of the Jiujiang Double Steaming Museum, said.

Huang Yongxia introduced that as a national AAA-level scenic spot, tourists walked into the Jiujiang Double Steaming Museum, after touring and winemaking process experience, it is easy to have a desire to consume the characteristic cultural and creative products in the museum, and everyone can also go to the museum's catering facilities - Yue YanLou Wine and Beverage Culture Hall to dine.

To build an industrial chain in the "museum +" model, not only wine products, catering services, but also cultural tourism industry. "We are also expanding other cultural tourism sectors, such as the 1821 winery that was completed and opened last year, Yiba Lohas Street and the future Nanguo Wine Town, and the landing of these projects will give us more imagination space for the entire cultural tourism sector." Huang Yongxia said.

Huang Yongxia introduced that at present, the wine products, catering service industry and cultural tourism industry derived from the museum can bring about 20 million yuan of revenue to the museum every year, which not only solves the annual expenses of the museum of 2 million yuan, but also feeds back the enterprise, and shows a feasible way for other corporate museums.

"Crisis crisis, as the name suggests, danger lies in the front and opportunity in the back, and we are not afraid of the crisis to embrace change and adjust in time to revitalize resources." In Huang Yongxia's view, there are three key points in building the industrial chain in the "museum +" model, one is to closely focus on the characteristics and core of the museum when developing different formats. In addition, it is necessary to have in-depth insight into the needs of tourists for knowledge expansion and leisure and entertainment, and carry out diversified project development for these needs, and at the same time, it is also necessary to activate development ideas, which can be both products and other cultural tourism projects when cultural and creative integration.