Museums and the COVID “New Normal”: Betsy Ross House
At the Betsy Ross House, “Betsy” has moved from inside the House to a newly constructed stage in the outdoor courtyard, where visitors can watch performances from a safe distance. (Photo courtesy of the Betsy Ross House.)
This past summer as some COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, museums in Philadelphia began to gradually reopen to the public for the first time in months. But between limited visitor capacities and strict safety regulations, the onsite experience looks very different. In this ongoing Q&A series, Museum Council will be exploring how museums throughout the Philadelphia region have adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic. We recognize that operating a cultural institution during a pandemic is uncharted territory, and each museum is faced with distinct challenges; our goal is to examine these approaches across museums of various sizes and types, and to share knowledge as a field.
Want to share your museum’s COVID reopening story? Please reach out to Lauren Scharf, Museum Council Marketing Committee Member, at lscharf@uarts.edu.
Our first interview is with Lisa Acker Moulder, Director of the Betsy Ross House. Keep reading to learn more about adapting a small historic house for COVID safety guidelines, creating socially distanced storytelling programs, and more!
Can you describe some of the different safety measures that the Betsy Ross House has put in place?
We are limiting onsite capacity to fifty people (although, traffic has been very slow, so we haven't needed to ask anyone to wait to enter just yet). Tickets are being sold at the courtyard gate, which means the courtyard is no longer free to all (only a handful of people have given us some pushback on this). We set up a space for a queue line on the sidewalk and heading in a westward direction. There is a second queue line in the courtyard for people to line up to enter the historic house. Floor decals placed six feet apart mark where people can safely stand in each queue.
We are only allowing up to six people from the same party to enter the house together. Any parties of more than six will be separated. We will allow up to three parties in the house at one time, but we make sure there is a room separating them. For example, a party is allowed to enter the parlor, which is the first room in the House, but the next party is not invited to enter the parlor until the party ahead of them has finished in the parlor and the back bedroom and moved onto Betsy's bedroom, which is the third room on the tour.
We want visitors to limit their time inside the House, so we moved Betsy outside to the courtyard and suspended audio tour sales. Ideally, visitors would spend just a couple minutes in each room, which means they should be able to finish the entire BRH tour in 10-15 minutes. We removed nearly all of our interactive exhibits in the House, including the newly installed Kids Kitchen to further prevent guests from lingering too long, but also to make it easier for our staff to do their hourly cleanings of all the high touch areas throughout the property.
Betsy and our storyteller now perform on a newly constructed stage in our courtyard and stanchions have been placed eight feet from the front of the stage. Clusters of four chairs are set up six or more feet away from each other so visiting parties can sit together a safe distance from both Betsy and other visitors. Of course, properly worn masks are required for all staff and visitors - even Betsy wears one!
Staff members need to complete a health check form and have their temperature taken before the start of each shift. If the staff are not feeling well (or if someone in their household is ill), we ask them to stay home. Honestly, this policy has left us a bit short-staffed on a couple of occasions, but better safe than sorry!
Socially distanced floor decals mark where visitors can safely stand in line to enter the Betsy Ross House. (Photo courtesy of the Betsy Ross House.)
What are some of the biggest safety challenges of the museum's physical building/exhibitions?
The Betsy Ross House is a 1,200 square foot rowhome that has been adapted to be a museum. The furnished rooms, stairways and office spaces are all very small, making social distancing a real challenge.
Which department(s) or staff members were responsible for leading the reopening efforts? How were the perspectives of different departments and levels of the museum integrated into the conversation?
Creating our reopening plan was a true team effort. The process began with a meeting at the Betsy Ross House between our facilities manager, President & CEO, VP of Operations, our publicist and me. We produced an initial plan and then shared it with the Director of Franklin Square (one of our organization's other properties). His input was invaluable because at that point his site had been open for a few weeks, so he had some great insights to share with us. Next, we presented our plan to the City's Health Department. The Betsy Ross House is owned by the City of Philadelphia, so we needed to have their approval before reopening. We made a few minor adjustments to our plan based on their recommendations. Finally, we shared our plan with our marketing team so they could help us create signage, floor decals and share our new safety protocols with the public through our social media channels.
Betsy Ross House employees eagerly prepare to welcome visitors back to the museum. (Photo courtesy of the Betsy Ross House.)
How did the Betsy Ross House communicate its reopening policies to staff members? How have safety procedures been communicated to the general public?
Two days before we reopened to the public, we had a mandatory training/dress rehearsal with our entire staff. We shared the new Betsy Ross House experience with them, discussed safety protocols, did a walkthrough of the site and had a dress rehearsal with our two Betsy Ross interpreters on the courtyard stage.
We have many new signs throughout the site explaining the new safety procedures. Our marketing and PR teams have also done a fabulous job sharing our safety plan with the public through social media posts and press releases.
How soon after the COVID-19 shutdowns in March did the Betsy Ross House start planning for reopening?
We didn’t do any real planning until we confirmed an opening date. Once we chose the date (August 4, but then we delayed it one day due to Hurricane Isaias), we sprung right into action. We had our plans created and approved, staff trained, signs designed, printed and installed and physical adjustments to the site completed in a little less than two weeks!
A Betsy Ross House employee is shown sanitizing a tablet screen. Staff conduct hourly cleanings of all high-touch areas throughout the museum. (Photo courtesy of the Betsy Ross House.)
Since reopening, how has the Betsy Ross House developed and/or expanded virtual programs and educational offerings to complement the onsite experience?
We have not yet done any virtual programming since we reopened, but our Education Team is working on creating a virtual field trip program to offer this school year. Our group sales team is also starting to book Zooms with Betsy Ross for organizations throughout the country.
What's been the most surprising or interesting thing that you've learned since reopening? Are there any procedures that you've changed since reopening? Is there anything you wish you had done differently?
I think we’ve done the best job possible protecting our staff and guests from each other, but it wasn't until we had a Covid scare within our staff that we realized there was more we could do to protect the staff from each other. A couple weeks ago we learned that someone who works here had been exhibiting some Covid symptoms and was taking off to quarantine and get tested. We immediately had to figure out who else on our team had been exposed to this person in the days prior. We identified two key staff members who were also asked to get tested and not return to work until they could produce negative test results.
Thankfully, this staff member received their results back in just 36 hours and we learned that they were Covid-free. However, this made us realize that there was more we could do to tighten up our safety protocols among our staff members. Since the scare, we’ve added capacity limits to our very small office/breakroom (we already had them for the public spaces, as I mentioned above), and asked staff to communicate via text rather than in-person whenever possible to further limit exposure to each other.