Art Explora chooses Convious to optimize its festival experience

To ensure both logistical efficiency and cultural impact for its festival, Art Explora partnered with Convious. Philippe Rivière, Art Explora's Director of Digital, shares how this solution aids in managing reservations, optimizing visitor flow, and tailoring the experience to meet local expectations.

What is the Art Explora festival? 

It's a free traveling cultural experience, centered around a museum boat, a cultural village and multidisciplinary programming. The festival began in March 2024 in Malta and will finish at the end of 2026. A total of 15 countries will be visited. Several immersive experiences are on offer: virtual reality experiences in the VR pavilion, contemporary art exhibitions designed around the issues and representation of the Mediterranean, and a program combining performances, conferences, film screenings and concerts.

Why did you choose Convious? What were your challenges? 

This project is particularly complex, as the festival will partially unfold on a moving museum boat. Convious supports us in maximizing visitor flow at each port of call, enabling us to optimize reservations for our 20-minute virtual dockside experience and for museum boat tours, which accommodate 40 visitors every 15 minutes. Additionally, we needed to provide a public interface in over a dozen languages.

The Convious back-office is user-friendly, particularly for on-site teams who can adjust online quotas for tour slots to align with local customs. For instance, in Morocco, where online ticket purchasing is less common, we modified the available quotas accordingly. Beyond ticketing, we also leverage Convious's automated marketing tools, which allow us to send pre-visit reminders to book and post-visit emails encouraging feedback in our digital guestbook.

Have you also set up a donation module for your Marseille stopover? 

We introduced a donation module at the start and end of the booking process to support the Art Explora foundation. This module is seamlessly integrated into the reservation flow, offering various “Friends of Art Explora” options with benefits rather than simple donations. All donors received unlimited access to the festival without the need for reservations. Depending on the donation level, supporters could receive a copy of Beaux-Arts magazine, a tote bag, or even entry into a raffle for a dinner. This module may also be used at future locations.

As seen on Tom Travel.