Video in the museum – raising awareness and reaching new audiences

There are around 8,500 museums in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein and German-speaking Switzerland. Only a fraction of these use videos. Yet videos offer a unique opportunity to engage potential and existing visitors with the museum. Where video is already being used, the range is vast. It extends from in-depth short documentaries of ‘arte’ quality to monthly brief updates produced in-house. Added to this are short formats on Instagram and TikTok – from 60-second guided tours of urban spaces to TikTok Reels.

In terms of content, the spectrum ranges from humour and background information to image sequences set to music. Given the sheer number of formats on offer and the relative multitude of platforms, it is difficult to find one’s bearings. What should a museum video look like? Is it even possible to answer this question in such general terms? These and other questions will be addressed in the talk by the museumsfernsehen team, Ilona Aziz and Thomas Wagensonner from Hamburg.