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Revisiting the museum experience

PurposeThis paper aims to contribute to the area of museum experience research, by exploring how consumers build stories to tell different experiences generated from a visit to a museum and by viewing these inductive findings in the light of recent research on consumption experiences (Lanier and Rader, 2015).Design/methodology/approachA qualitative study is conducted. Twenty-three narratives were analysed relating a visit to ZKM museum in Karlsruhe (Germany) using narrative analysis techniques, as they are suitable to capture sensations, emotions and feelings.FindingsZKM museum emerges from the analysis of the narratives as a cradle for stochastic experiences (Lanier and Rader, 2015). The narratives develop several episodes that correspond to performance and liberatory experiences. A reconceptualization of the museal experience is proposed as a mesh of performance, stochastic or liberatory episodes, that capture the subject’s perspective.Research limitations/implicationsThe study was limited to students who were 19-23 years of age and to one museum. Future research should include a wider age group and other museums.Practical implicationsThe findings provide useful insights for curators, educators and exhibit designers staging museal experiences.Social implicationsThe findings provide a better understanding of different experiences occurring in the same experiential context and their meaning from the subject’s perspective.Originality/valueLanier and Rader (2015) typology has not yet been tested in a museal context. The findings suggest that the same context can generate a set of various episodes (performance, liberatory, stochastic) within a given experience. From a methodological perspective, the results show that qualitative approaches are relevant to segment the museal offer based on sought experiences.