9 Reasons May Lead to A Dinosaur Exhibition Failure

We have been in contact with clients who organizing dinosaur exhibitions for over 15 years, possessing extensive experience in creating successful dinosaur exhibitions. In the industry, rare people cannot match this experiences. But what saddens us even more are those failed dinosaur exhibitions. Instead of sharing the experience of a successful dinosaur exhibition with potential customers (who may already have experience in organizing exhibitions), it is better to explain the lessons of the dinosaur exhibition’s failure clearly. This is a sense of responsibility towards customers and also helps them avoid such incidents from happening.

Here are 6 failure lessons we have summarized (all from real customers failure experiences). If you want to create a profitable dinosaur exhibition, please read carefully.

Information Board:

#1. Blind confidence, not making a budget before the exhibition
#2. Not conducting market research
#3. Blindly purchasing regardless of dinosaur species
#4. Not going to inspect the rental location
#5. Only purchase dinosaurs but not other decorative items
#6. Not paying attention to concealment before implementation
#7. Failure to establish reasonable fee standards
#8. No layout interactive devices in the exhibition
#9. No professional training is provided for relevant management personnel

1. Blind confidence, not making a budget before the exhibition

Many clients who fail to hold exhibitions do not have a carefully calculated budget to start with! There is no specific expenditure plan in advance, and there is no knowledge or limited understanding of certain expenses such as animatronic dinosaur models, rental sites, compensation for management personnel, artificial vegetation, etc. This will lead to serious budget overruns during exhibition work.

The consequences of budget overruns:

• When the exhibition work reaches a certain stage (halfway or two-thirds), it cannot continue.
• The exhibition work can only continue when the next funding is in place.
• The stagnation of work can lead to serious waste of human resources and funds.
• The stagnation of work can also lead to a delay in the operation of exhibitions.
• The large amount of manpower and material resources invested in the early stage will also be wasted.

2. Not conducting market research

This is the most important factor leading to failure. The feasibility of the market is the foundation for the success of dinosaur exhibitions. If the feasibility of the market is not investigated beforehand, it will lead to the loss of the most important tourist traffic for the dinosaur exhibition, as well as the loss of social media dissemination. If these two things are not successful, what awaits is a loss making deal.

The consequences of not conducting market research are:

• The expenses and income of the dinosaur exhibition are a blind blank, which greatly increases the probability of your exhibition being unable to make ends meet.
• It is likely to cause a lack of traffic in the place where you hold the exhibition, and an exhibition without visitors is like a convenience store without visitors.
• It is possible that no one at the location where you hold the exhibition has the ability to afford the cost of children’s exhibition viewing.
• The location where the exhibition is held simply cannot accommodate a large number of people entering.
• Local residents do not have such high entertainment expenses.

3. Blindly purchasing regardless of dinosaur species

Some customers purchase dinosaur exhibits indiscriminately without distinguishing between different species, which may lead to an imbalance in the number of carnivorous and herbivorous dinosaurs in the exhibition venue. Generally, in an interesting dinosaur exhibition, carnivorous dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus Rex, Velociraptor, and Triceratops, as well as herbivorous dinosaurs such as Brachiosaurus, Iguanodon, and Triceratops, each account for half of the population. However, blindly purchasing without consulting our opinions may result in an exhibition area filled with carnivorous or herbivorous dinosaurs.

Planning for purchasing dinosaur species:

• To purchase a carnivorous dinosaur, must follow the principle of buying 1-2 herbivorous dinosaurs. This can create an atmosphere of dinosaur hunting.
• If it is the first time holding a dinosaur exhibition, please purchase well-known dinosaur species in order to resonate with the audience.

4. Not going to inspect the rental location

Some clients only want to hold a dinosaur exhibition, but they are unwilling to visit the location. This is extremely wrong. If you are not familiar with the location, it may result in additional expenses for the exhibition.

What is the error caused?

• Perhaps they have chosen a relatively remote location that is far from the city center, and it takes a long time for tourists to reach by self driving.
• The location route may not even have asphalt pavement, or even dirt roads, which greatly reduces people’s desire to go there.
• There are not many urban residents living around the location, nor are there relatively complete commercial complexes, which means that even if this exhibition is held, it cannot attract a large number of tourists.

May result in significant additional costs:

• If the location lacks commercial and entertainment value, it may require you to invest in some basic equipment for decoration.
• If the convenience and commercialization of the location are poor, more advertising and other expenses need to be invested.

5. Only purchase dinosaurs but not other decorative items

Undoubtedly, aimatronic dinosaur exhibits are the most important protagonists for dinosaur exhibitions. All exhibition-creators will definitely purchase the protagonist, but some customers do not value decorative items at all. They blindly believe that as long as there are dynamic dinosaurs in the exhibition site, it will naturally attract people to watch, and nothing else is important. This is an extremely erroneous thinking.

Possible consequences of not purchasing decorative items:

• A few or a dozen dinosaurs stood alone in an exhibition area, creating almost no interesting or adventurous atmosphere.
• Once the atmosphere of fun or exploration is lacking, it will form a negative reputation among tourists, leading to a gradual decline in their attendance.
• If poor reputation continues to ferment on customers and social media for a long time, then this dinosaur exhibition is destined to be a loss making business.

6. Not paying attention to concealment before implementation

Many customers, after finding a satisfactory location, hurriedly move various exhibits into it without any confidentiality. If your carefully arranged dinosaur exhibition is gradually seen through by passing tourists before it starts, it will definitely lead to the exhibition attractive effect.

Why pay attention to concealment:

• An exhibition must have enough attraction and mystery to attract a large number of visitors, which is the key to the success or failure of the exhibition.
• If passersby see everything you want to show, it will definitely lead to a significant reduction in attractiveness.
• The spread rate of social media is particularly fast now. Once your carefully planned paid dinosaur exhibition has already spread on the internet, it will inevitably lead to a decrease in the number of tourists visiting the venue.

The vast majority of people have never seen “living dinosaurs”. But once the content of a living dinosaur exhibition without any concealment is exposed, it will be the beginning of a failed exhibition.

7. Failure to establish reasonable fee standards

A successful dinosaur exhibition requires costs. The organizers have invested substantial amounts of money and manpower in producing the exhibition. Therefore, the purpose of the exhibition is to achieve higher profits than the investment. A reasonable fee standard (to enter the exhibition to observe live dinosaurs and experience the adventure world) is a necessary measure for the success of the exhibition.

What factors should reasonable charges be formulated:

• You can refer to the fees of your local natural museum or children’s playground, and on this basis, you can increase the price by about 10%-20%.
• You can refer to the median salary of the local people and set the fee quota at around 1%-3% of the median.
• Based on our experience communicating with clients, most fees are around $15-$35.

Residents’ income and consumption vary in different places. Customers are advised to set reasonable ticket prices based on their local consumption as a reference, so that visitors can feel genuine.

8. No layout interactive devices in the exhibition

A dinosaur exhibition without interactive devices is destined to be eliminated in the exhibition of the new era. More and more audiences are paying more attention to whether their experience is interesting when watching an exhibition, rather than just looking at a viewing item.

The lack of interactive devices in exhibitions may result in the following effects:

• After visiting once, visitors may feel that there are not many strange and fun things here, only roaring dinosaurs, which will not be conducive to the establishment of the exhibition’s reputation.
• The lack of interactive devices will result in a poor experience for tourists and reduce the establishment of atmospheres such as “adventure”, “time travel”, and “excitement” in dinosaur exhibitions.
• Once the reputation of poor adventure experience spreads, it will also lead to poor popularity of the exhibition.

Recommend the following interactive devices:

Dinosaur riding devices >
Dinosaur riding cars >
Interactive dinosaur suits >
Dinosaur theme decorations >

8. No professional training is provided for relevant management personnel

Only professional and well-trained exhibition managers can contribute to the success of a dinosaur exhibition. During the exhibition’s operation, everything must be supervised and managed by humans. When operating an exhibition, untrained management personnel can result in additional costs.

Failure to train management personnel may result in:

• When there are a large number of people entering the dinosaur exhibition and there are no relevant staff on site to maintain and manage order, it may lead to chaos on site.
• When unexpected situations occur on site (such as injuries or circuit failures of certain equipment), there are no relevant personnel who can efficiently handle them, resulting in the stagnation of the exhibition’s normal operation.
• If there are any electrical or other issues with the animatronic dinosaurs on site, the relevant staff will become blind and unable to find a solution, resulting in the exhibition’s dinosaur protagonist becoming uninteresting.
• Once there is an urgent need from tourists on site, the relevant personnel have no idea how to solve it.

A dinosaur exhibition without relevant training personnel is destined to be an unorganized result.

Summarize

If you are planning to organize a dinosaur exhibition, be sure to carefully read the nine potential reasons that could lead to your failure. Actively use these as a reference to avoid inappropriate behaviors and ensure the smooth execution and ultimate success of the exhibition.