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Heritagisation of pop culture by museums and an analysis of visitor feedback

Article in Arts and the Market · May 2021

DOI: 10.1108/AAM-08-2020-0026

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Heritagisation of pop culture by Pop culture

museums and an analysis of

visitor feedback
David S. Waller
Marketing Discipline Group, University of Technology Sydney,
Haymarket, Australia, and Received 7 August 2020
Revised 21 March 2021
Helen J. Waller Accepted 23 April 2021

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Abstract
Purpose – In recent years, there has been a “heritagisation” of pop culture, including music, whereby cultural
institutions, such as galleries and museums in primarily Western countries, have run exhibitions based on pop
culture to successfully market to a new audience of visitors. The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore
the issue of the “heritagisation” of pop culture by museums and observe visitor response to a specific music-
related exhibition, linking intangible and tangible elements of the exhibition to provide a framework to
understand the visitor experience.
Design/methodology/approach – The purpose will be achieved by observing the “heritagisation” of pop
culture in the literature and past exhibitions, proposing how cultural institutions have linked the intangible and
tangible elements of music in pop culture for an exhibition and observe visitors’ feedback from online
comments posted on Tripadvisor undertaken during the original “David Bowie is” exhibition at the Victoria
and Albert Museum (V&A), London.
Findings – From the Leximancer analysis, a new conceptual framework for visitor experience at an exhibition
was developed, which contains three visitor-related categories: pre-exhibition, exhibition space and exhibition
experience, with five themes (tickets, exhibition, displayed objects, David Bowie and visitors) and 41 text
concepts.
Practical implications – For cultural institutions the implications are that there can be opportunities to
curate exhibitions on pop culture or music-related themes, which can include intangible and tangible elements,
such as songs, videos, tickets, costumes, musical instruments and posters. These exhibitions can also explore
the changing socio/political/historical/cultural background that contextualises pop cultural history.
Originality/value – This theory-building study advances the body of knowledge as it links music in pop
culture and cultural institutions, specifically in this case a highly successful music-related exhibition at a
museum, and provides a theoretical model based on tangibility elements. Further, it analyses museum visitor
comments by using the qualitative software program, Leximancer, to develop a new conceptual framework for
visitor experience.
Keywords Museums, Music, Visitors, David Bowie
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Museums provide an important service to society as they research, collect and display objects
of historic and cultural significance to the general public for educational and entertainment
purposes. At times being located in large, imposing, old buildings, where some people may
not feel comfortable visiting as the museum is believed to be full of ancient relics, dusty
exhibits and boring stories about people they have never heard of that they last visited as a
school child (Carrier, 2001). But museums have been changing, moving from being
“essentially object-based” focused on their collection (McLean, 1994) to becoming more
service-centric (Alcaraz et al., 2009), visitor focused (Kirezli, 2011), interactive and experiential
(Hooper-Greenhill, 2000; Hyun et al., 2018) to increase the visitors’ enjoyment and education Arts and the Market
(Casey, 2001; Gilmore and Rentschler, 2002). With a problem of falling numbers of visitors © Emerald Publishing Limited
2056-4945
(Jones, 2017), the GLAM sector (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) has taken on the DOI 10.1108/AAM-08-2020-0026
AAM “marketing concept”, whereby organisations achieve their goals by “knowing the needs and
wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfaction better than competitors do”
(Kotler and Armstrong, 2010).
The use of marketing activities by museums and other GLAM institutions has been
discussed for many years (Ekstrom, 2020; Kotler and Levy, 1969; Gilmore and Rentschler,
2002; Kotler et al., 2008; McLean, 2012). However, the use of digitalised interactive activities,
like social media including websites, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and third-party sites, like
TripAdvisor, by museums with the aim of ticket sales has been relative new, and not without
some criticism (Kim, 2016). Past research has also connected the important link between
museums and the service delivery experience (Packer and Ballantyne, 2002; Lagrosen, 2003;
Alcaraz et al., 2009; Camarero and Garrido, 2012). So, as well as enhancing the visitor’s
experience, museums must keep in mind their professional service practice of curating
exhibitions that can contribute a better understanding of topics, issues, people, cultures and
history. Over the last few years, pop culture, particularly music, has been a theme of several
successful exhibitions at museums that have provided both education and entertainment to
visitors (Waller and Waller, 2016), including those who may not usually attend public
programing at cultural institutions.
The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the issue of the “heritagisation” of pop
culture by museums and observe visitor response to a specific music-related exhibition,
linking intangible and tangible elements of the exhibition to provide a framework to
understand the visitor experience. More specifically, the aims of this theory-building paper
are to (1) present the issue of the heritagisation of pop culture and, particularly music, to
propose a theoretical model that represents the relationships of forms of tangibility and
visitor experience at a music-related exhibition and (2) analyse online comments from visitors
to a highly successful music-related exhibition at a museum to discover their response to the
exhibition and any related themes to develop a conceptual framework for visitor experience
at an exhibition. The exhibition chosen for this qualitative study is the “David Bowie is”
exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London, which has since become “the
most successful touring exhibition in the cultural institution’s 164-year history” (Nankervis,
2016). This study advances the body of knowledge as it links music in pop culture and GLAM
cultural institutions by providing a theoretical model based on tangibility elements. Further,
it analyses museum visitor comments by using the qualitative software program,
Leximancer (2013) to develop a new conceptual framework for visitor experience at an
exhibition.

Background
Digitalisation and cultural heritage
Digital media, reproduction and devices have changed our socio-cultural practices, which are
linked to collective memories, oral traditions, material objects, performance and ritual that are
elements which embody our cultural heritage (Giaccardi, 2012; Smith, 2006), and thereby
changed museum practice. The relationship between digital media and cultural heritage can
be best understood by viewing the impact of digital technologies and social media on cultural
heritage practice (Berry, 2012; da Silva et al., 2013; Harrison, 2013), knowledge (Giaccardi,
2012), conservation (Smith, 2006; Zhou et al., 2012), documentation (Stuedahl and Mortberg,
2012; Waller and Waller, 2018) and exhibition (Bearman and Geber, 2008; Wang and Lin,
2018). The use of digitalisation also increases the capacity for digital storage, including still
images, video and sound access and transparency, and social engagement through sharing
and connecting with audiences (Giaccardi, 2012; Stuedahl and Mortberg, 2012), as well as
engaging with new audiences and spaces (Jafari et al., 2013; Malpas, 2008). Digitalisation is
also capable of managing and navigating historical information along with current user-
related information, like location of the museum and future events (da Silva et al., 2013). This Pop culture
can also disrupt the past limitations of the physical space, as well as business hours, to
provide the public access to collections at any time of the day (Zhou et al., 2012). This links
with the idea that heritage is an ongoing process that has both tangible (physical) and
intangible (immaterial) elements.
The interaction between digitalisation and cultural heritage has enabled heritage
conservation and documentation as a communication medium and a tool, which has the
capacity to change the way in which museums create, distribute, store and converse cultural
heritage and knowledge (Berry, 2012; Giaccardi, 2012; Schnapp and Presner, 2009). However,
when looking at the conservation and documentation of the intangible nature of cultural
heritage practice, it is rather difficult due its immaterial or historic state (da Silva et al., 2013;
Waller and Waller, 2018). Where possible the conservation and documentation of cultural
heritage creates “digital representations,” which can be stored and accessed along with being
transparent and unrestricted to the public (da Silva et al., 2013, p. 3). These digital
representations, whether authentic originals or reproductions, made by “using digital virtual
reality technologies”, are found on social mediums or other platforms like the home website
and are not seen to be as replacements of in person presentation (Stuedahl and Mortberg,
2012; Zhou et al., 2012). Further, by encouraging and developing public engagement with a
project that links heritage conservation and documentation, this can lead to the
“sustainability of intangible cultural heritage” (Stuedahl and Mortberg, 2012, p. 110).
Such digital use of cultural heritage can also connect and engage with the general public
who can access information and collection objects or respond with comments or criticism
online (Waller and Waller, 2019). This can be done by using interactive online social media
sites or “owned” social media including websites, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram or by
third-party websites like TripAdvisor and Yelp.

Public engagement
Museums and other institutions like art galleries, heritage sites and education centres are
encouraged to adopt new media technologies and procedures to stimulate and maintain
visitor engagement in the space or with the collection (Barrett, 2011; Bearman and Geber,
2008; Simon, 2010). This is because the institutions should be reflective of the society they
belong to and each should strive to continue to be a significant body for collecting,
conserving, documenting and displaying objects and to suit the needs of their audience
(Bearman and Geber, 2008). Digitalisation plays a role in maintaining cultural heritage
practice and knowledge as it allows for “more participatory ways for interacting with
heritage objects and concerns” (Giaccardi, 2012, p. 1), which include public “co-creation and
reflection” (Stuedahl and Mortberg, 2012, p. 107). This reflection by the public can be an
important source of feedback and evaluation.
Past studies have focused on areas like motivations and expectations of visitors through
segmentation studies (Barrett, 2011; Poria et al., 2006), which are used to ensure the museum
management understands and communicate effectively with their potential visitors (Falk and
Dierking, 2016; Wu et al., 2010), and conduct post-event evaluation for “visitor feedback
loops” to consider for future events (Gilmore and Rentschler, 2002; Harrison and Shaw, 2004;
Rowley, 1999). Although some feedback can be embarrassing to the institution, it can be an
insightful form of electronic consumer feedback (Madz
ık et al., 2005; Waller and Waller, 2019).
The role of the general public, and more specifically the visitor, has also evolved to be
important reactors, investigators and interpreters of information, as well as dispersers of
knowledge, and even as content creators (Jafari et al., 2013; Olson, 2013). This participatory
level of engagement in cultural heritage practice and knowledge by individuals, like industry
participants, collectors, hobbyists and fans, can occur from within the museum space or
AAM cyberspace, including museums or individuals’ social network sites, like Facebook or Twitter
(da Silva et al., 2013; Jafari et al., 2013; Jenkins, 2014; Olson, 2013; Stuedahl and Mortberg,
2012). Examples can include people donating intangible and tangible objects, such as old film,
video, recordings, notes, tickets, photographs, posters, objects and clothing. This
engagement, combined with digitalisation activities discussed above, has the ability to
invite in new audiences and engage with the community like never before, along with the
formation of cyberspaces for interaction and dialogue on relevant topics.

The “heritagisation” of pop music

At a basic level, music is an invisible form of art that can have a powerful effect on the listener,
evoking memories of the past and arousing emotions in the present, which can play multiple
roles in social life, including providing a type of “sonic materialism” presence (Wallach, 2003).
Different styles of music, particular songs and certain artists can lose and then gain favour of
people over many years. Also, music has great intangible value in the individual and
collective memory (Van Dijck, 2006), and various songs can evoke different reactions
depending on the context (Bennett and Rogers, 2016; Rozin et al., 2004). Listening to music can
generate memories of the past, both good and bad times from your youth or mark the
identification of personal or social events (Schubert, 2016). It has been said that music “bonds
and shapes individuals through specific instances of cultural memory tied to their collective
associations with particular music scenes and associated cultural groups” (Bennet, 2009, p. 477).
Some songs are being re-released or recorded by new artists, and singers and bands of years
gone by hitting the road again for concert tours to large, appreciative audiences, indicating
the growing of “heritage rock” (Bennett, 2009).
However, the idea that music you grew up with might now be considered “heritage” can be
surprising. Yet as we get older, the music of our youth acquires socio-cultural and historical
significance and inevitably opens up heritage values (Roberts, 2014.). So, while old rock and
pop songs might be entertaining to listen to, the music is also an important aspect of social
and cultural history (Edge, 2000; Reynolds, 2011; Roberts, 2014), which is within the scope of
cultural heritage practice (Baker et al., 2016; Leonard, 2010). Not only in listening to old songs,
but viewing pictures, programs, entry tickets, posters, original costumes and musical
instruments (Pirrie Adams, 2016; Reising, 2001). Therefore, pop music-themed programs can
have a resonant place in the museum space, as seen by some recent music-related exhibitions
in public cultural spaces that have generated a broad interest and attracted large museum
audiences around the world. Examples of music-related exhibitions include displays of work
by The Beatles, ABBA, Bob Dylan, Kylie Minogue, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Nirvana
and David Bowie. Other films or TV series pop culture-related exhibitions have been based on
the Harry Potter, Mad Max, Game of Thrones, Downton Abbey, Star Wars and James Bond,
which have all included musical elements in the displays particularly highlighting their
recognisable theme music.
There has been a growing body of knowledge critically engaging with the significance of
popular culture (Hewer and Hamilton, 2012; Slater and Armstrong, 2010) and music (Bennett
and Janssen, 2016; Homan, 2008; Leonard, 2007; Oldman, 2013; Stratton, 2006) in relation to
ideas involving cultural heritage processes and practice (Brandellero and Janssen, 2014;
Brandellero et al., 2014; Goulding, 2000; Mortensen and Madsen, 2015). This phenomenon is
part of a larger trend that involves the “heritagisation” of 20th century cultural expressions
and history, informed by nostalgia as the previous century recedes (Brandellero and Janssen,
2014). The “heritagisation”, “museumification” or “artification” of popular culture is a process
involving many different activities: the collecting, archiving, commercialising, conserving,
digitising, remembering, giving formal recognition to and displaying of a plethora of tangible
and intangible cultural material (Brandellero et al., 2014; Shapiro, 2019). These activities are
assisted by digitalisation and carried out variously by public/private organisations, Pop culture
professionals, collectors, interest groups and fans. Further with the help of the artist/s and
the general public, these memories become part of this heritage discourse (Brandellero et al.,
2014, p. 220).
A feature of these exhibitions is “displaying the everyday,” including objects related to
music creation, performance and “fan practices” (Leonard, 2007). This can include intangibles
like playing songs, video clips or documentaries presenting contemporary images of the
music, highlighting background stories and contexts, as well as tangible objects like musical
instruments, clothes, props, posters, photographs and event tickets. Objects that were owned
or formerly owned by members of the general public, collectors and fans can now be on loan
or donated and displayed in a museum. Items like an entry ticket might be perceived as a
minor object at the time of use, but years later is a sign of proof participation and a souvenir
that can be framed collectable which can be seen as “displaying the everyday”. This expands
the engagement of the public into the heritage process and museum space and can attract new
visitors (Brandellero et al., 2014; Leonard, 2007).

David Bowie is
There have been several music-related exhibitions that have been run at major history and art
museums around the world, such as exhibitions of ABBA, The Beatles and The Rolling
Stones. These exhibitions have obtained objects from various sources, including record
companies, fans, collectors and the musician’s personal archive, and involved the visitor
encouraging them to interact in some way. One exhibition that has been so successful that it
has toured to international destinations was “David Bowie is” (2013–current). This exhibition
was first mounted by the V&A, London in 2013, and soon became the fastest-selling
exhibition in the V&A’s history selling over 67,000 advance tickets, and then it started an
international touring exhibition it become “the most successful touring exhibition in the
cultural institution’s 164-year history” (Nankervis, 2016), with exhibitions being held in
Toronto, S~ao Paulo, Berlin, Chicago, Paris, Melbourne, Groningen, Tokyo, Bologna and
Barcelona. The retrospective of the life and career of David Bowie contained over 300 objects
including handwritten lyrics, more than 50 original costumes, set designs, album artwork,
photographs, interviews and rare concert footage. The material was collected by The David
Bowie Archive, which is his personal collection of memorabilia, and “demonstrates how
Bowie’s work has both influenced and been influenced by wider movements in art, design,
theatre and contemporary culture and focusses on his creative processes, shifting style and
collaborative work with diverse designers in the fields of fashion, sound, graphics, theatre and
film” (www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/touring-exhibition-david-bowie-is/). This is a
significant example of a type of that exhibition transformed the value of pop culture-
related objects from items of everyday and personal use to museum objects that were
catalogued and viewed in museums by a broad public audience.

Linking intangible and tangible elements with visitor experience

From discussing the issues relating to the heritagisation of music pop culture and observing
such exhibitions, it is noted that there is a relationship between the forms of tangibility and
cultural exhibitions. According to McLean (1994), “the artifacts are clearly tangible; it is the
emotions they evoke which are intangible” (p. 193), which the museums must manage and
curate to provide a satisfying visitor experience in the exhibition space. As the literature
suggests, a service marketing approach is making intangible elements more tangible, and the
benefit is that if the service experience is beyond expectations, the customer will not only be
satisfied but will either return or tell others of the positive experience (Lovelock and
Patterson, 2015).
AAM Using a music-related exhibition as an example, it can be conceptualised that the
intangible and tangible elements are linked by the exhibition to engage the visitor, provoke
enjoyment of the exhibition space and provoke memories of past as well as create new shared
memories and experiences with younger generations. A theoretical model that represents the
relationships of forms of tangibility and visitor experience at a music-related exhibition is
proposed in Figure 1.
As portrayed in the model, music pop culture can have intangible elements, like music and
videos, plus tangible elements, like stage costumes and musical instruments. An example of
how these could be linked is sheet music, which is musical notes written down but it is only
understood when it is performed. An exhibition in a cultural institution can further link these
elements in a specific space where visitors can listen to the music or purchase merchandise to
takeaway a physical memento from the exhibition. Also, from the exhibition a visitor
experience is generated with the provoking of nostalgic memories and personal enjoyment.
This encourages a form of nostalgia depending on the type of visitor: “reflexive nostalgia” for
the community of fans who lived the experience, and “received nostalgia” which is “second
hand” and experienced by the next generation of listeners (Mortensen and Madsen, 2015).
These elements of tangibility and intangibility intertwine to engage the visitor, provoke
memories of experience as well as created new shared memories and experiences across
generations to include a new audience for the institution.

Methodology
To appreciate visitors’ feelings about a music-related exhibition, a historical analysis of visitor
feedback to the exhibition on TripAdvisor was undertaken on the original “David Bowie is”
exhibition at the V&A London in 2013. The David Bowie exhibition was chosen because it was
a highly successful pop culture/music exhibition that was sold out at the time of the original
exhibition, became the focus of a documentary film “David Bowie Is Happening Now (2013)” and
continued as a touring exhibition years after visiting various countries in Europe, North
America, South America, Asia and Australia from 2013 to 2018 (Nankervis, 2016; von Aue,

INTANGIBLE Sheet TANGIBLE

Music

Music Costumes
Exhibition
Video Instruments

Listening Merchandise

VISITOR EXPERIENCE

Memories Enjoyment
Figure 1.
Linking intangible and
tangible elements with
visitor experience
2018). TripAdvisor, www.tripadvisor.com, is a popular digital forum and recognised as the Pop culture
world’s largest travel site where people can post reviews on hotels, restaurants and attractions.
It was chosen as the source of digitalised, online reviews of the V&A exhibition as it felt that as
it was not directly connected to the V&A the visitors would more freely comment their real
opinion of the exhibition than they would directly on the V&A Facebook or websites, and it has
been used in other studies (Migu
ens et al., 2008; O’Connor, 2008). A review of V&A sites did not
find a large number of comments and those posted were positive. Although there is concern
with the authenticity of TripAdvisor reviews as being biased (Ayeh et al., 2013; Mayzlin et al.,
2014), it is noted that this study is observing a limited-time cultural attraction and not a
privately-run hotel or restaurant, which is hoping for repeat commercial business, it is believed
that there would be limited chance of fake reviews (Keates, 2007).
A historical analysis was undertaken of the TripAdvisor reviews of the “David Bowie
is” exhibition as the focus of the analysis was limited to only during the time that the
exhibition ran 23 March–11 August 2013 (Tripadvisor, 2013). This was to get an
understanding of visitors’ experience at the time of the exhibition and not asking visitors
to think back and reflect on their feelings, which could be more favourable than their
experience at the time. The analysis found a total of 181 reviews, of which most were very
positive in their rating out of 5–5 stars 133 (73%); 4 stars 36 (19.5%); 3 stars 9 (5%); 2 stars
2 (1%) and 1 star 1 (0.5%). The reviews were copied onto a word document and edited to
keep only what was written in the review. The word data were first inputted into a word
cloud generator (www.wordclouds.com), which found the most mentioned words were
Bowie (334), exhibition (219), David (179), see (91) and tickets (81). While the words
“Bowie”, “exhibition” and “David” would have been expected to be mentioned when
describing a David Bowie exhibition, the mentioning of “tickets” would have been very
important to visitors to the popular exhibition.
The words were then inputted into the qualitative software program, Leximancer https://
info.leximancer.com/. This program transforms “lexical co-occurrence information from
natural language into semantic patterns in an unsupervised manner” and uses algorithms to
calculate semantic meanings and relationships (Smith and Humphreys, 2006, p. 262). It is also
a software package that has been used in the past, including marketing and tourism studies,
to discover themes hidden in open text (Dann, 2010; Sotiriadou et al., 2014; Tkaczynski et al.,
2015; Tseng et al., 2015).

Results
To analyse comments from visitors to a music-related exhibition at a museum to discover
themes behind their responses, the procedure recommended by Leximancer was followed
(Leximancer, 2013; Smith, 2017), as well as previous studies that used Leximancer (including
Sotiriadou et al., 2014). After adjusting the “theme bubbles” as recommended by Smith (2017),
a Concept Map was developed which contains five themes (tickets, exhibition, displayed
objects, David Bowie and visitors) and 41 text concepts (which are main words which
identified as being repeated within the themes). The conceptual map framework is displayed
in Figure 2, which graphically shows the relationship and connections between the themes
and the smaller text concepts inside the balloons, which are explained below.
Reviewing the themes it was decided that they formed three main visitor experience-
related categories: (1) pre-exhibition–tickets, (2) exhibition space–David Bowie, exhibition
and visitors, and (3) exhibition experience–displayed objects. Table 1 presents the thematic
summary, which includes the five theme names ranked by the connectivity score, being the
degree that the theme is connected to the other concepts in the map (Leximancer, 2013), 41
text concepts that occurred across the themes, the hits or times the concept was mentioned
and the percentage relevance for each concept proportionality in relation to each other based
AAM

Figure 2.
Conceptual mapping of
themes for visitor
experience

on the concept “exhibition” being the main term mentioned and for each theme on the most
mentioned concept in the theme (Sotiriadou et al., 2014).
The following gives examples of the five themes, including direct quotes from the
comments, based on the three visitor experience-related categories pre-exhibition, exhibition
space and exhibition experience. Note that some quotes will include words that are relevant to
more than one text concept, which is why there is a high degree on connectivity with some
themes, and the overlapping of theme bubbles.
(1) Pre-exhibition
Tickets
As the David Bowie exhibition was extremely popular, being the V&A’s fastest-selling
exhibition to date, the theme of tickets was the main issue mentioned in the comments. These
included stories, warnings and suggestions about purchasing tickets and long queues,
such as
We couldn’t get per-booked tickets do had to buy them when we got there. After getting the tickets
we had to wait over an hour.
. . . ask to get in a bit before the start time on your tickets!
Joined the V&A members club solely to get tickets to this event. . .and it was worth it.
Get there early to buy tickets for David Bowie’s exhibition as it is a timed visit. Very well put together
and it is quite an experience.

(2) Exhibition space

David Bowie
The focus of the exhibition was David Bowie, and so some visitors commented on David
Bowie, the person, such as
Theme (connectivity) Text concepts Hits % of theme relevance % of total relevance
Pop culture
Tickets (100%) Tickets 68 100 36.8
Time 62 91.2 33.5
Museum 59 86.8 31.9
V&A 51 75.0 27.6
London 39 57.4 21.1
Visit 32 47.1 17.3
Queue 28 41.2 15.1
Sold 23 33.8 12.4
Ticket 21 30.9 11.4
Free 21 30.9 11.4
Times 18 26.5 9.7
Exhibition (86%) Exhibition 185 100 44.7
Bowie 127 68.6 30.7
Fan 45 24.3 10.9
Enjoyed 19 10.3 4.6
London 19 10.3 4.6
Early 19 10.3 4.6
Displayed objects (63%) Costumes 48 100 25.9
Music 46 95.8 24.9
Amazing 25 52.1 13.5
Fantastic 24 50.0 13.0
Lyrics 21 43.8 11.4
Experience 21 43.8 11.4
Audio 18 37.5 9.7
Written 17 35.4 9.2
Recommend 17 35.4 9.2
Lots 16 33.3 8.6
Area 14 29.2 7.6
Sound 13 27.1 7.0
David Bowie (37%) David Bowie 96 100.0 51.9
Exhibit 39 40.6 21.1
Best 18 18.8 9.7
Special 20 20.8 10.8
Art 15 15.6 8.1
Fashion 15 15.6 8.1
Visitors (30%) People 34 100 18.4
Hours 28 82.4 15.1
Exhibits 25 73.5 13.5 Table 1.
Interesting 23 67.6 12.4 Themes from
Busy 19 55.9 10.3 TripAdvisor
Everything 14 41.2 7.6 comments

This retrospective encompasses the life and times, the influences and passions that made David
Bowie one of the great rock stars of our time. Without question his intellectual view point, his
theatrical flair and background and his acute awareness of society brought out a unique point of
view in his music.
So many artefacts from his stage and writing career, being really close to the phenomenon David
Bowie as actor and musician and influence on anything else like fashion, etc.

Exhibition
As it was a was an exhibition on David Bowie, it is understandable that the words
“exhibition” and “Bowie” were commonly occurring but connected to these words were those
mentioning that they were a “fan” and “enjoyed”. For example,
AAM As a Bowie fan for over 40 years I was really looking forward to this, and I was not disappointed.
Went to V&A for Bowie exhibition 5th June really enjoyed it.

Visitors
The final theme was on fellow visitors and was more negative than all of the other themes. As
the exhibition was so popular, it also meant that there were crowds there, which some people
commented on. For example,
There were about 50 people in front of us but, by opening at 10a.m., around 300 after us. . .
Too many people going in at once making it a bit difficult to get near everything. Be prepared to
spend a couple of hours just on this.
I think they let in far too many people and should have staggered the entry a bit more. At the start
about 50 people all trying to look at fairly small exhibits.
It is a very interesting exhibition and worth a visit, but unfortunately the number of other people also
beguiled by Bowie meant that it was too crowded.

(3) Exhibition experience

Displayed objects
Of particular interest are the views about the displayed objects, or artifacts, in the exhibition.
The text concepts that were generated tended to fall into three areas: (1) adjectives or
descriptive words, describing the exhibition experience, (2) intangible elements of the
exhibition and (3) tangible elements that were displayed. This reinforces the earlier
discussion on the linking of intangible and tangible elements with visitor experience.
Many of those who visited clearly like the exhibition, some saying that it brought back
memories and feelings of nostalgia, describing it as “Amazing”, “Fantastic”, “Lots” and
“Recommend”:
It was just amazing to see up close the same costumes that I’d first seen on stage in 1973.
The exhibit is fantastic for fans wanting to see all his stage costumes up close, videos, film clips and
artefacts such as original song transcripts.
Full of lots of Bowie outfits and stuff from all the decades–the hand written lyrics and stage plans
totally fascinated me.
Just to see the costumes that I’ve seen over the years on videos, films and in concerts was stunning.
I cannot recommend this enough, although sadly for those who haven’t already got tickets.
The intangible elements of the exhibition included “Music”, “Lyrics”, “Experience”, “Audio”
and “Sound”:
The exhibition was stunning: an extensive collection of costumes worn by David Bowie with notes,
historical background material and of course music. The hold staging of this exhibition was very
impressive.
Scribbled song lyrics, his first singles and, of course, those famous costumes. The music was also
brilliant, showing film of concert and video performances.
Costumes, artwork, songs written out on rough paper, photography and video footage take up a
large area of the museum and it is well presented and an enjoyable experience.
 Some really creative displays and I liked the audio system (although I was very skeptical in the Pop culture
beginning, I thought this worked very well).
Sound and vision, the best collection of costumes, memorabilia, videos on huge screens, audio-
tour, etc.
Finally, relating to objects in the exhibitions was the tangible elements, in particular the stage
costumes and outfits worn by David Bowie. These were also mentioned in other text quotes,
which is indicated by having 48 hits, or mentions, across all of the comments. Also, the hand-
written notes and the physical “area” that housed the exhibition were mentioned:
Lots of costumes and videos.
Most of the iconic outfits that Bowie wore are on display and allied to a thumping soundtrack . . .
Costumes, hand written lyrics, and an in depth interview with Bowie on the cut up method of writing
and the computer program he used to do it.
The huge screen showing him in concert near the end of the exhibit has alcoves behind it that contain
costumes and when the screen goes dark in that area you can see them lit up behind it.

Discussion
This study has observed the issue of the “heritagisation” of pop music culture by GLAM
institutions with the help of digitisation to market to a broader audience and presents the case
of the “David Bowie is” exhibition by the V&A Museum and analysed visitor response to a
specific music-related exhibition. This is seen as part of the movement “towards the
repositioning of popular music as cultural heritage”, with the emphasis on both intangible and
tangible elements, such as music, pictures, posters and videos, plus entry tickets, costumes
and musical instruments (Bennett and Rogers, 2016). The exhibitions displayed a variety of
everyday objects related to music creation and performance, as well as “fan practice” which
encourage public engagement (Leonard, 2007, p. 162). Also, the displaying of tangible objects
can promote an intangible reaction from the visitor, for example, framed posters have the
capacity to evoke memories of events and feelings of anticipation.
For cultural institutions, the practical implication from this study is that it is important
that their offerings should not remain stagnant and reinforce the idea that they are old,
imposing buildings holding boring, dusty objects. The GLAM sector is changing, becoming
more marketing focused and appealing as a social space for new visitors to interact with the
material they can engage with (Kotler and Levy, 1969; Kotler and Armstrong, 2010). This
means that, from a marketing perspective, the cultural institutions should not be totally
product-focused just because the “product” (collection or even building) has not changed in
100 years, but focus on being service-centric, relevant, interactive and engaging to satisfy its
visitor base and attract new visitors (McLean, 1994; Alcaraz et al., 2009). This is being
achieved by curating pop culture-based exhibitions that appeal to a broader market, some
who may have not been to a museum since a school excursion.
This study has focused on the heritagisation of music, but as was mentioned above there
are other examples of “heritagisation”, “museumification” or “artification” of popular culture,
which has included films and television series. Of particular interest is that there have been a
number of successful exhibitions that have attracted new interest and audiences with
exhibitions focused on fashion, apparel and luxury brands, such Christian Dior, Chanel, Louis
Vuitton and Alexander McQueen, as well as particular brands and products, like Coca-Cola,
The Laughing Cow, Maton Guitars, sports shoes and handbags (Chaney et al., 2018; Ekstrom,
2020). For example, the exhibition “Bags: Inside Out” presents the history and social
importance of bags “from designer handbags to despatch boxes, vanity cases to military
AAM rucksacks” (Bags: Inside Out, 2021) and is also at the V&A Museum, London. This type of
exhibition presents some everyday objects, such as handbags, backpacks and luggage, and
not only heritagises them but by redefining the idea of art and its place in the museum, it
raises them to a piece of art, thereby undergoing a process of artification (Kapferer, 2014;
Shapiro, 2019). This artification is not just occurring in museums as luxury brands are also
ratifying their stores (Vukadin et al., 2019), and it is occurring in the wine industry (Joy, et al.,
2021). This is an area that needs further research.
The theoretical implications of the study are that the discourse led to the proposal a
conceptual model showing relationships of forms of tangibility and visitor experience at a
cultural exhibition (Figure 1). Further, the review comments from visitors to the David Bowie
exhibition at the V&A on TripAdvisor support the model presented in Figure 1. The
Leximancer analysis identifying displayed objects as a theme in the exhibition, which
included intangible and tangible elements, with the text concepts such as costumes, music,
lyrics, audio and sound. It further developed a conceptual framework for visitor experience
with three visitor experience-related categories: pre-exhibition, exhibition space and
exhibition experience (Figure 2). As the model indicates, there are important intangible
and tangible elements that can be connected to an exhibition, which can add to the visitor
experience. If a new visitor has a positive experience at an exhibition, then he/she is more
likely to share his/her experience, personally or online via social media, and possibly return
for another exhibition in the future.
Finally, there can be some valuable implications for a museum to hold an exhibition with
pop culture/music-related themes, including generating publicity for the institution, raising
awareness among the non-museum visitors and increasing revenue via ticket and
merchandise sales. However, there can also be problems if a museum is seen as forgetting
its role in the community and just chasing the sponsorship or box-office dollar. Being
perceived as being subordinate to large commercial interests as they promote their corporate
agenda or accepting sponsorship from a company in a controversial industry or that has
questionable work practices can bring negative publicity to the institution and is an ethical
concern for the museum sector (Waller and Waller, 2016). It is, therefore, important for
institutions to also consider potential issues of credibility, objectivity, reputation and
independence and not just the financial benefits when it comes to what exhibitions will be
presented.

Conclusion
The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the issue of the “heritagisation” of pop
culture by the V&A Museum and observe visitor response to a specific music-related
exhibition, linking intangible and tangible elements of the exhibition to provide a framework
to understand the visitor experience. From the discussion, including issues related to
digitalisation, public engagement and various music-related exhibitions, it appears that
exhibitions devoted to pop music genres have established their popularity with visitors at a
number of major museums globally. This would confirm the “heritagisation of pop culture” as
an established phenomenon. For cultural institutions, like those in the GLAM sector, the
implications are that there can be opportunities to curate exhibitions on pop culture/music-
related themes, which can include intangible and tangible elements, such as songs, videos,
costumes, musical instruments and posters, as well as exploring the changing socio-/political/
historical/cultural background that contextualises music’s development. Objects for the
exhibitions could also be sourced from the general public, including industry people,
collectors and fans, plus digitalisation and social media can be associated with music to
improve interactive exhibit activities in the online and offline environment. These can be used
to enhance the visitors’ experience and be a valuable marketing tool for the institution.
 Further research is recommended in the area of the power of pop culture as a marketing Pop culture
tool for cultural institutions, especially the intangible and tangible aspects. The value of the
visitor experience in such exhibitions needs continuous measurement, as well as asking what
could be some future trends in museum exhibitions, including framing future exhibitions as
being heritigasation or artification of the objects. A comparison of visitor feedback could be
made between an exhibition based on pop culture themes and one that might be on more
traditional themes for museums, such as ancient Greek or Roman exhibitions. Due to the
limitations and concerns about the reliability of TripAdvisor reviews, a future study may
compare owned social media (Facebook and Twitter) and third-party review sites
(TripAdvisor and Yelp). This study has focused on museums, but several musicians have
proven themselves to creative painters and visual artists, including Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell,
Ronnie Wood and Tony Bennett, so it would be interesting to see if art galleries would curate
exhibitions by celebrity musicians. Visitor, and non-visitor, opinions are also valuable to
cultural institutions to ensure that they can appeal to current and new visitors in the future.

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About the authors

David S. Waller is an Associate Professor in the Marketing Discipline Group, University of Technology
Sydney. David has over 20 years’ experience teaching marketing subjects at several universities in
Australia. His research has included projects on marketing communications; controversial advertising;
international advertising; marketing ethics and marketing education. David S. Waller is the
corresponding author and can be contacted at: david.waller@uts.edu.au
Helen J. Waller works at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. She has a Bachelor of Arts and
a Master of Museum and Heritage Studies from the University of Sydney. Her research has included
projects on painted advertising signs, object biography and social media and museums.

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