Small budgets, high expectations

Recent recipients of the Kids in Museums ‘UK’s most Family Friendly Museum’ The National Emergency Services Museum in Sheffield highlight how to deliver sustainably and creatively on a tight budget.

The landscape for museums and the wider culture industry has changed dramatically in recent years. Visitors are expecting to be entertained, enthused, and engaged with history and to feel that they have spent their time – and, importantly, their money – well. So, what can independent museums do to create exhibitions which can compete with larger, funded heritage sites but don’t cost the earth?

At Sheffield’s National Emergency Services Museum (NESM), the answer is a rather eco-friendly one: RECYCLE! The South Yorkshire attraction is tackling the challenge through innovative exhibition design backed by a ‘make do and mend’ approach that puts reuse, recycling, and sustainability at its heart, supported by a small multiskilled team of staff and volunteers.

Matthew Wakefield, the museum’s CEO, says, ‘Necessity is the mother of invention and that was never truer than at NESM. We pride ourselves on offering an experience that is inclusive, hands-on, and relevant. But this costs time and money and for independent museums like us, who need to raise every penny that we spend, both of these are precious commodities. So, we need to think differently and creatively when designing our exhibitions.’

Matthew says, ‘At NESM we have become masters of reinvention; surplus handcuffs become exhibition barriers, duplicate helmets become light fittings and old lockers become display cases. Cost saving methods like this not only save us pennies but reduce our landfill contribution and give new life to old or unused items. Through our networks we also rescue surplus items from elsewhere that were destined to be thrown away. Things like old museum cabinets, storage systems, tech and even salvage from fire stations come to us to be refurbished and reused.’

Recycling these highly expensive fittings that were destined to be broken up or sent to landfill allows the museum to spend money elsewhere, on vital building works to restore its 120-year-old station or on crucial vehicle restorations. This system of sharing resources and fixtures and fittings goes both ways, as NESM send on cases, cabinets, and other fixtures to be reused by other sites too.

The museum is helped by a talented team of staff and volunteers who carry out much of the work in-house. NESM is fortunate to have a diverse (but small) team who come from all kinds of backgrounds and have all manner of skills, enabling it to reduce its use of sometimes expensive outside contractors and saving on things like digital design for interpretation and graphics, sign writing, exhibition design and technology installation. Involving the entire team, including volunteers, also enables the museum to deliver a varied and co-curated exhibition which reflects its community and ensures everyone is valued and involved.

To keep costs low and standards as high as possible, the museum also acquires some of the technology used in its interactive spaces from alternative sources; working with universities and their students who are creating new apps, resources, or software, not only supporting the community but investing in new talent and skills.

The museum has practiced what it preaches in recent years. Since its first Covid closure in 2020, NESM has opened four completely new exhibitions and refurbished five other galleries, all on extremely tight budgets. Matthew says, ‘People are often stunned at what we can achieve. Our Blitz exhibition, for example, was created for a fraction of what it would have cost had we approached it in the traditional way. We have visitors from other heritage organisations who simply cannot believe that we are able to put together something so amazing on such a shoestring budget.

‘We think our methods are a positive, community-driven, cost-saving, and sustainable way forward. It doesn’t solve all the problems we face in budgeting for new exhibitions but it’s a way we can continue to improve our museum even in the current climate.’

Click here to visit the NESM website>>

Pictured: Left – exhibitions like this one, commemorating the Sheffield Blitz, are put together on a shoestring. Right – police helmets repurposed as light fittings in the museum’s coffee shop.