Annual Survey of Museum-Goers
Understand your audience. Benchmark your museum. Make better decisions.
In today’s rapidly evolving environment, museum leaders need to make decisions based on data, not assumptions.
The Annual Survey of Museum-Goers delivers valuable insights into museum-goers’ attitudes, behaviors, and expectations, helping you make more confident, informed decisions.
We all have questions.
Answer yours with the Annual Survey of Museum-Goers.
What could your museum accomplish if you really knew your audience?
A partnership between Wilkening Consulting and the American Alliance of Museums, the Annual Survey of Museum-Goers provides a cost-effective way to:
- Understand your visitors: Discover what motivates them, what they value, and what encourages deeper engagement.
- Benchmark and identify trends: Compare your audiences with those of peer museums and gain insights into changing attitudes, behaviors, and expectations.
- Make more informed decisions: Use credible audience research to guide programming, marketing, strategic planning, and conversations with funders and community partners.
Turn those insights into action to attract more visitors, strengthen community connections, demonstrate your museum’s value, and plan confidently for the future.
Participation starts at
$1,250
Customized audience data | Peer benchmarks | Real-time dashboard | Presentation-ready results | Expert interpretation
How museums use the results:
Strategic planning, marketing and audience development, programming, fundraising and grant applications, board presentations, special initiatives, membership/retention, and community engagement.
The survey is designed for museums of different disciplines, locations, and budget sizes. Museums with smaller budgets may qualify for discounted participation.
2027 Themes
In addition to gaining deeper insights into your museum’s audience, the Annual Survey of Museum-Goers’ yearly themes help the museum field grapple with current challenges and opportunities.
This year’s themes are:
Attendance and Leisure-Time Trends During Economic Uncertainty
Attracting visitors is always a primary concern of museums, even more so during times of economic uncertainty. Rising gasoline prices, tighter household budgets, and increasing travel costs can all influence tourism and leisure-time experiences.
Which audiences are most likely to cut back on museum visits, and which may already be doing so? Are there audiences that might actually visit more frequently as they look for affordable, meaningful experiences closer to home? We’ll explore these shifts so museums, as valued leisure-time destinations, can better serve their audiences, whether locally or when people travel.
Real-Life Experiences in a Digital World
As digital technology, including AI, increasingly influences our lives, more people are turning to real-life experiences that offer balance and connection. We’ll examine the kinds of offline experiences people are seeking, from so-called “granny crafts” and board games to wellbeing and social connection, and consider how museums can draw on their spaces, collections, programs, and communities to meet those very human needs.
Participate in the 2027 Survey in 4 easy steps
Participating in the 2027 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers is quick and easy. Sign up by February 28 and launch your survey by March 8 to save 60%!
Enroll by the Early Bird deadline, December 1 to save even more.
Sign up for the 2027 Survey
Enroll your museum in the 2027 survey by February 28, 2027. It takes less than 5 minutes.
Explore how you can customize your base survey and reports to get the insights you need with our Survey Add-Ons.
Send your survey
Wilkening Consulting will send you a custom link to your museum’s survey and sample text for you to send to your email list and post on social media by March 8, 2027.
Sit back and see your results in real-time through your virtual dashboard.
Receive your report
Start discovering more about your audience! Between May and June 2027, you will receive your data spreadsheet and a shareable, easy-to-understand slide deck visualizing your results.
Discuss your results with a pro
All museums will receive access to a short video series to contextualize results. Choose to drop-in for office hours with Wilkening Consulting to discuss your results.
If your museum is a Plus or Premier AAM Member, you also receive a private one-hour call with Wilkening Consulting to discuss your results.
“The Annual Museum-Goers survey has been invaluable to our museum.
The new approaches to visitor engagement that research has led us to implement have resulted in our visitation growing [by over 30 percent]…We have used the data to guide decisions about brand messaging and imagery, our most current strategic plan, and our annual priorities.”
Rebecca Gilliam Vice President, Visitor Experiences, Minnetrista
Testimonials
Read more from previous participants in the
Annual Survey of Museum-Goers
“We learn not only about who is coming to our museum, but also the impacts on our visitors and the reasons they value us. The survey helped us see that the intentional work we are doing in this area is working.”
“No museum should plan its operations and strategically look to its future in the vacuum of its own data, having access and an interpretation of the data helps our team stretch themselves to be better at delivering to the needs of our audience.
The value of the investment has more than doubled for our team.”
“The results from the Annual Survey allow our marketing and education teams to better understand our audience and empower us to promote MiSci as a customized set of experiences that our guests want! We highly recommend participation in the survey – Susie and her team distill complex datasets into meaningful takeaways for us.”
“We love that this is data we receive every year so that we can review change over time and understand what visitors are seeking during these challenging times for our communities. These metrics help us look both, backwards and forwards, as we plan for the future.”
“We received our results about a month ago and have already started to use them in the following ways: Sharing highlights with our board; with funders- in grant applications and reports; in conversation with potential donors and funders; in marketing and sponsorship materials; with our city chamber; to strategically inform our diversity, equity, and inclusion work; to inform conversation about strength and growth areas for programming; in preparation to enter strategic planning next year. As a small museum, I would say it is definitely worth it.”
Participants & Stories
From catalyzing change to growing audiences and telling stories, read the stories of previous participants in the Annual Survey of Museum-Goers.
Museum Benchmarking & Comparisons
Ready to sign up?
Complete the form to sign up or get in touch with Wilkening Consulting for more information.