*Entering the Receiving Parlor in the Camron-Stanford House Virtual Tour (2020).*

When the museum where I work closed on March 13, 2020, we had no idea that we wouldn’t see visitors in our rooms for over a year. How could we have? My office mate and I went home that day expecting to see each other in 2-3 weeks.

“We’ll just put this stuff on hold and push back our calendar a few weeks,” we thought.

It quickly became clear that we were not dealing with a 2-3 week closure. We were dealing with our doors being shut for the foreseeable future, and we had to make some decisions. We had an exhibit that was set to open the weekend our city closed down. We had a full class of docents ready to begin a training program the week following, not to mention a full spring of lectures and events on schedule. What should we do? Just sit tight and wait for the smoke to clear?

Big nope to that. Instead we took a leap of faith and jumped into the virtual world. Much of my 2020 work time was spent exploring digital tools for virtual engagement that would allow us to continue to provide educational and interesting programming and opportunity for connections with history, our museum, and each other.

Camron-Stanford House is real small y’all. We rely a lot on the income from our private event rentals, and the income from our tenants to help support our public programs. As you can guess, our private events, especially weddings, have also been non-existent since 2020 because of local health orders. As you can guess, this has impacted our budget drastically. But, as those of you who work in small museums and historic sites understand, small budgets can’t stop us, and we always find a way to make it work. In this next series of posts, I wanted to share some of the very affordable, very easy-to-use tools I was able to find to help carry Camron-Stanford House into the digital age, with great success, might I add. Today I am going to talk about virtual tours, but later will talk about our social media growth, online exhibits, virtual docent trainings, and our community speaker series, too. On with the [virtual] show…

Virtual Tours

Since we couldn’t have visitors inside, my first task was to figure out how to bring Camron-Stanford House to our visitors. Virtual tours are a great way to do this, and there are so many ways to approach virtual tours. They can be done relatively easily by having a staff member or volunteer record a tour using their smartphone or a tablet. If you want to get a bit more advanced, I have seen some museums able to secure funding for more advanced video equipment and microphones to make this happen. I, however, opted to go the 360 route. I was admittedly inspired after spending an at-home date-night with my husband exploring the rooms of the Winchester Mystery House using their virtual tour, and thought it was a brilliant offering for people who are missing exploring museums, and seeking that kind of immersive experience.

Using a consumer-grade 360 camera, I photographed one floor of our museum, where our main period rooms are located. To stitch it all together I used a program called Kuula. I spent quite a bit exploring different 360 tour software options, and I assure you, there are many to pick from. What I began to realize is that those that were marketed specifically to museums were often software used by real estate agents, wrapped with a different bow. Whereas the museum sides were often marketed as a full-service package with a photographer who comes to your site and a person who puts the tour together for you (at a cost, of course), I found that the same could be done using the real estate software side, with a DIY approach. Once I realized that, I realized that almost any real-estate virtual tour software would do what I needed if I was prepared to do it myself.

*Pop-up point of interest for an object in the Camron-Stanford House’s virtual tour (2020).*

Looking outside of software directly marketed for museums seemed to give me a bit more to work with, and happily find exactly what we needed at a price that we were comfortable with. Using Kuula I was able to put together a seamless 360 tour of our period rooms, veranda, and rear garden. The software also allows for adding points of interest where you can add photographs, information, and links. It was also relatively easy to learn to use, and easy to reverse my mistakes when I made them (and I did!). As a bonus, people with a VR headset can explore our rooms in 3D.

Since launching our virtual tour, we have had over 1,000 visitors roam our virtual halls. For some larger museums, this would not be an impressive feat, but for Camron-Stanford House, this is huge, as our digital footprint has historically been quite small outside of social media posts. We have seen our virtual tour shared on social media across the country, and have received kind words from Victorian architecture fans from across the coast, and from teachers who have used the tour to talk about architecture, local 19th century history, and art. I have big plans in mind for this technology. I would love to do a new virtual tour when our rooms are decorated for different holiday exhibits, or try to implement a scavenger hunt, or even do specialty tours (right now I’m playing with a restoration/architecture tour) that people can explore. And this is a technology that we plan to maintain, even after we reopen. As a historic site, our accessibility options have been limited, and we relied on photographs to show people what it looks like on the upper floors when they are not able to traverse the stairs. A virtual tour changes the experience for those who cannot take the upstairs tour. In terms of accessibility, it will allow our visitors to explore the rooms, learn, and engage. Is it perfect? No, but we are getting closer, thanks to this technology.

One thing I loved about this project especially, is that it allowed me to invite our docents to participate. Since we’ve been closed I’ve been trying to think of ways to help our docents and volunteers continue to feel that they are part of our museum community and an important part of our continued growth, even online. Two of our docents helped me gather and write the information that we used to populate the point-of-interest boxes. It was a great way to collaborate with people who are so knowledgeable and passionate about the house and its collection, and be able to do it safely online.

As I mentioned before, there are several great softwares, including Matterport and Hullfilm, that market to museums and provide full-service packages resulting in truly beautiful, dynamic virtual tours. A digital humanities grant or a fundraising drive might help cover these expenses. I was fortunate to already have access to a 360 camera, but I understand this is not the norm. Some softwares will work with an iPhone to create a 360 rendering. It also might be worth reaching out into the community and making a connection with a local real estate agent who might be willing photograph your space at an accessible rate. I encourage you to get creative and think about what you can do to make this happen on terms that work for your museum.

If you have done your own virtual tour, or know of any especially great ones, please share I with me, I love exploring them!

Explore the Camron-Stanford House Virtual Tour: