The National Portrait Gallery case study As their funding correlates to the annual number of visitors, the National Portrait Gallery needed to know their audience in order to attract more people inside.

1. Who visits museums? NPG’s case study
Inside Visions | info@insidevisions.com | www.insidevisions.com
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Client
The National Portrait Gallery, in London, had more than 2 million visitors last year.
With the world’s most extensive portrait collection, they exhibit from Queen Elisabeth’s paintings
to Queen’s Freddie Mercury’s photographs, plus every relevant British figure in between.
Need
Who visits museums?
As their funding correlates to the annual number of visitors, the gallery needed
to know their audience in order to attract more people inside. They had been
using a counting system but wanted more.
For example, had an exhibition targeted at young people actually been
successful with this group? Is it the grandmother or the grandfather that brings
children in? Questions like these, related to visitors’ profiles, were left
unanswered.
Challenges
Installation
To do it, there were two main challenges:
• Avoid a great number of cameras and equipment - that could damage the
gallery’s historic building; and
• Deal with the direct sunlight towards the cameras at the main entrances - that
converted people’s faces into silhouettes. By Sam Walsh. Photo credit: NPG

2. Inside Visions | info@insidevisions.com | www.insidevisions.com
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Solution
Whoever comes in, also goes out
The solution provided is Face Click®: a face detection and profiling software that gives
analytics on age group, gender, and accurately counts people in real time and
anonymously.
Installing it in a camera facing inwards, it will capture the visitors’ characteristics while
leaving the gallery (the same that walked in) at the main doors, to avoid direct sunlight. In
the gallery’s exhibition rooms and shops, the existing security cameras can be used.
Results
Adapt the gallery
They will be equipped with actionable insight on
visitor patterns and interests by demographic
group, in each room, each shop, and in the gallery as
a whole.
For example, if the contemporary room has
younger visitors, they can adapt the next exhibition
to a topic that attracts this demographic group.
Or, if there are many women coming in, to have
souvenirs at the shop specifically targeted to them.
All of these analytics are updated, in real time, in an
online dashboard so the NPG can gather all of the
information, to quickly share with the
administration board.
Face Click will help them support decision-making,
to adapt their artworks and message, and plan
future exhibitions according to the people that visit
Report example: comparing visitors between two rooms, adult men and women during a chosen week them.