- Jul 2, 2019
- 2 min read

AAM & APGA 2019

It’s officially summertime (even here in the Midwest where it’s just getting warm!) and your visitors have a lot of options for where to spend their longer days and nights. The season is off to a busy start here at Encurate: we’ve been traveling from conference to conference around the nation on a quest to help you become your visitors’ favorite place to hang out and explore this summer.

So far, we’ve been to New Orleans, D.C., and back to Chicago learning about visitors’ wants and needs from all different kinds of cultural destinations.

Nancy and Melaina having a blast at the WWII Museum!

At the American Alliance of Museums Conference in New Orleans we had great conversations with museum professionals from all over. A big topic was how to make visitors’ experiences easier and more accessible. We didn’t chat with a single person who didn’t want their visitors to have an easy to use map in the palm of their hand or the ability to tailor their visit to their specific interest areas.

While in NOLA we definitely took the opportunity to explore the rich history and incredible museums. The Historic New Orleans Collection in the French Quarter had an incredible contemporary art show up, and the renowned WWII Museum did not disappoint. The exhibitions were great, and AAM threw an awesome closing party beneath a giant aircraft in one of their galleries!

A few weeks after AAM, and a brief rest in Chicago, we continued traveling to our nation’s capital for the American Public Gardens Association’s Annual Conference. It was our second time attending and we are so glad we came back.

We lucked out with beautiful weather in D.C.

Botanical gardens, arboretums, and outdoor spaces alike all have many stories that are ready to come to life. A great feature of offering visitors a mobile app in these spaces is that interpretation via signage can often be difficult - offering interpretation in an app means it is accessible no matter what part of a trail or park they’re exploring. It was fun chatting about how a mobile app can help these spaces tell stories and provide wayfinding, while preserving their serendipitous magic that visitors love.

Our trip was capped off with a visit to The National Museum of the American Indian. We visited their newest, award-winning exhibition Americans and quickly understood why it has been so decorated. If you ever find yourself in the area, it will be up through 2020!

Returning to Chicago was bittersweet; we would have loved for this trip to never come to an end! But the good news is that not only are we always just a click away, but we will be traveling quite a bit this upcoming fall. Are we going to cross paths? Reach out to see if we’ll be in your city soon! We can’t wait to meet you.