Professor Tom Schössler on deploying Behavioural Science in a Museum

How can Behavioural Science help museums to encourage more visitors?

In this episode, I speak to Professor Tom Schössler who is the Managing Director of the Weserburg Museum of International Contemporary Art. For links to references I made during the show see the end of these notes.

Tom was responsible for conducting an interesting Behavioural Science experiment to see how a change in the pricing structure, impacted visitor numbers and perception of his museum. For more on that: https://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/article/what-weve-learned-car-parks-about-boosting-attendance

What Tom had to say about the experiment was really interesting and it highlights a real challenge of Behavioural Science; to work out whether something works, you need to experiment. And that takes courage. The lessons from this are fascinating.

What the experiment illustrates is the power of behavioural interventions; if we want to change behaviour, then changing people's perceptions is a powerful tool to do that. The lessons we can learn from this don't just apply to Museums. They also apply to other fields like Risk, Compliance and HR.


We recorded this before the Coronavirus lockdown, but obviously the challenge of getting visitors through the door once the crisis is over is going to be even more acute than before.

As this series progresses, I’m looking to bring you different voices you won’t have heard before, alongside academics and Behavioural Science practitioners. A museum director fits that bill perfectly.

For more on the Museum visit their website: https://weserburg.de/en/visit/
The local items I mentioned in my introduction are:
Werder Bremen football club: https://www.werder.de/en
Brauerei Beck: https://becks.de/
The Town Musicians of Bremen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_Musicians_of_Bremen