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Your Visit Starts Now!
Pre‑Visit Storytelling for Museums

Stop thinking “front door”.
Start thinking “first click”.

  • How To Engage Your Visitors Off-Site

  • The Value of Pre and Post Visit Interactions

  • Maximise Your Visitor Experience With Digital Entertainment

For most visitors, your museum doesn’t begin with a ticket scan, it begins with a link. A search result, an email subject line, a TikTok clip on the sofa.

 

That’s where expectations are set, nerves are calmed, and excitement starts to build.

The opportunity for museums is huge: if you can turn those pre‑visit moments into story‑rich, interactive experiences, visitors arrive feeling primed, curious and already emotionally connected to what they’re about to see.

Why the visit really starts before arrival

Most visitors now “meet” you online long before they can see your building.

  • They compare what’s on, how easy it is to get there, and whether it will work for their group based on your website, email, and social feeds.

  • They quietly judge your museum against every slick digital experience they use daily – from streaming platforms to travel apps.

  • If that early journey is confusing, dry or purely transactional, it becomes much harder to turn interest into booked visits, recommendations, and repeat engagement.

Think of the visit as one continuous story with a before, during and after – not a single two‑hour slot in the diary. Panivox exists to help you design that whole arc, not just the bit that happens in the galleries.

Map the pre‑visit journey – then upgrade it with a story

Before you roll out new tech, it’s worth getting brutally honest about what’s happening between “Maybe we should go” and “I’m in the gallery”.

  • Where do people first hear about this exhibition or experience?

  • What do they see when they Google you on their phone?

  • How does it feel to buy a ticket, receive a confirmation and plan the day?

Each of those touchpoints is a story moment you control. A journey map makes the gaps obvious: perhaps you have a gorgeous exhibition landing page, but a flat, generic confirmation email that kills the buzz; or lively social posts that don’t match the tone of your on‑site experience.

This is where Panivox comes in: instead of adding “yet another tool”, we give you a single-story engine you can weave through all those touchpoints.

Lead with the story – let RichCast do the heavy lifting

Great digital projects don’t start with “We need an app”. They start with “What’s the story we want people to live through?”

Panivox, powered by our award-winning RichCast platform, lets you turn those stories into interactive, branching experiences that:

  • Introduce characters, choices and stakes before the visit even begins.

  • Carry visitors from discovery to anticipation to reflection using the same narrative, voice and tone.

  • Are built and updated directly by your marketing and learning teams – no coding, no dev backlog.

Years of investment in RichCast mean you get enterprise‑grade tech without the typical custom‑build cost or complexity. You’re not experimenting on an untested prototype; you’re plugging into a proven engine designed specifically for story‑driven experiences.

Make every channel part of the same story

You don’t need a big digital team to make the pre‑visit phase work harder. With Panivox, the same RichCast story can surface in multiple places, all from one build.

  • Website and ticketing: Embed a short interactive teaser on your “What’s On” or booking page, so visitors meet a character or choose a theme before they buy.

  • Email and confirmations: Swap generic confirmations for smart, story‑driven pre‑visit journeys: “Three paths you can follow on your visit – pick one now.” Link straight into RichCast via a URL or QR code.

  • Social and short‑form video: Use Instagram, TikTok or YouTube to trail characters and questions, then invite viewers to “continue the story” in an interactive pre‑visit experience.

Because everything runs in the browser, visitors simply tap a link or scan a code. No app store, no downloads, no IT headaches.

Story‑first, browser‑based – built to move fast

This is where Panivox’s USP really matters. Under the hood, RichCast already has a sophisticated interactive engine. You get the benefits:

  • Speed: launch or tweak a story in days, not months, so you can respond to campaigns, seasons or school topics in real time.

  • Flexibility: duplicate and adapt existing stories for different audiences (families, schools, enthusiasts) without starting from scratch.

  • Low risk: no big upfront build; content is created in a no‑code environment. If you have the resources, your team can even learn to make changes and create content themselves!

In practice, that means your pre‑visit storytelling can stay perfectly in sync with marketing campaigns, learning programmes and even last‑minute exhibition changes.

One story, three phases: before, during, after

Once we’ve built you an interactive story, it doesn’t stop at the door.

  • Before: visitors explore a short, playful introduction at home or on the train.

  • During: in the gallery, they scan QR codes to unlock extra scenes tied to objects or spaces.

  • After: follow‑up emails invite them back into the story from home, offering deeper content or a new path to try on a future visit.

The same narrative thread runs through the whole journey, helping you build stronger emotional connections, membership offers and return visits – all without rebuilding separate apps for each stage.

Why Panivox is a safe, smart first step

If you’re just starting to take pre‑visit storytelling seriously, the last thing you need is a massive, custom digital project that takes a year and eats your budget.

Panivox gives you a lower‑risk, much faster way to experiment:

  • Browser‑based, no‑code RichCast stories you can launch and iterate in weeks.

  • Simple links and QR codes that drop straight into your existing emails, website, signage and social posts.

  • Revenue‑share models that can reduce upfront costs –generating income from visitor payments instead of drawing down core budgets.

If you want your visitor journey to feel joined‑up, story‑first and future‑proof,

the place to start isn’t a new app.

It’s a new way of telling stories – and that’s exactly what Panivox and RichCast are built to do. 

Contact us to have a chat about how we can help you bring stories to life

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