Overview

The Royal Academy of Arts promotes the appreciation and understanding of art and its practice. Every year since 1768, the RA has held an annual Summer Exhibition, the largest open-submission art exhibition in the world. In addition, the gallery presents multiple major curated exhibitions each year.

After a long period of distributing traditional rented audio-guide hardware, RA asked Smartify to write, produce, and deliver an audio guide on visitors' own devices. Crucially, the guide had to be easy-to-use and a paid-for experience.

Exterior shot of Burlington House, Royal Academy of Arts, London - credit Fraser Marr

The brief

After a long period of distributing traditional rented audio-guide hardware, RA asked Smartify to write, produce, and deliver an audio guide on visitors' own devices. Crucially, the guide had to be easy-to-use and a paid-for experience.

The solution

Smartify’s creative team worked with the RA curators to produce the guide itself. We worked in a collaborative, open way to draw out the themes and key stories of the exhibition in an exciting and contemporary way.

We made the guide transaction as smooth as possible by integrating the guide purchase with online ticketing, offering a payment point and QR code at the exhibition entrance to make walk-up transactions quick and easy, and clear signage with a small audio guide desk.

The results

The RA successfully transitioned from expensive, outdated hardware that was hard to maintain and update to a far easier, flexible, and cost-effective solution with Smartify. Our authentic approach to content creation delivered a guide that was engaging for visitors and received lots of positive feedback.