The Blockbuster Effect: How Mega-Exhibitions Reshape Markets and Drive Tourism

15:00 — 16:20 (May 21)
New Treryakov Gallery
Small Hall

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Roundtable Discussion

Blockbuster exhibitions have become powerful tools for drawing attention to museums, cultural centres, and entire cities. These queue-forming exhibitions represent not just cultural events but significant economic drivers that transform tourism and museum industries.
Such projects extend far beyond a museum’s walls: they boost tourism, stimulate hospitality sectors, enhance urban cultural appeal, and even influence art markets.
However, massive projects demand massive investments, creating new requirements for exhibition design, visual storytelling, and logistics — widening the gap between differently-resourced institutions. While generating multiplicative economic effects, these mega-exhibitions often fail to achieve positive ROI, presenting museums with complex cost-benefit calculations.

• Blockbuster exhibitions — Natural museum evolution or symptoms of a cultural commercialization trend?
• Are mega-exhibitions effective at popularizing arts?
• How to level the playing field for variably-funded museums?

Moderator:
Lilia Dasaeva, Creative Producer

Speakers:
Svetlana Datsenko, Advisor to the General Director, The State Hermitage Museum
Timur Moskalenko, Chief Artist, Show Consulting Studio
Yulia Petrova, Director, Museum of Russian Impressionism
Olga Romanova, Head of Curatorial Projects Department, Manezh Central Exhibition Hall
Tatyana Yudenkova, Head of the Department of Painting from the Second Half of the 19th to the Early 20th Century; Curator of the “The Itinerants” Exhibition, State Tretyakov Gallery
Kheba Sami, Head of Temporary Exhibits, National Museum of Egyptian Civilization