Case Studies

Paris' Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais is a flag-ship French heritage site, and one of the most prestigious galleries for temporary exhbitions in the country.

Our relationship with the Gallery started in 2000, when Espro SAS, the French subsidiary of the Espro Acoustiguide Group introduced the first Group Guiding system for group-member visitors there. Since then we have introduced audio guides and audio multimedia guiding systems at the site.

From October 8 2008 to February 2 2009, the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais hosted the major blockbuster exhibition of the season: Picasso and the Masters. This landmark exhibition of over 200 works, brought together a series of masterpieces by Picasso and the artistic pantheon which inspired him: Rembrandt, Poussin, Velasquez, Goya, Delacroix, Ingres, Manet, Renoir and Gaugin. The exhibition was dedicated to showing the influences of these Masters on Picasso and his work.

Over a million visitors visited this block buster exhibition (which was extended in response to audience demand); Espro-Acoustiguide offered the visitors with its most advanced Opus Click and Opus Touch multimedia players, with audio commentary in all 23 official languages of the European union. A fully interactive children's tour was offered as well.

The audio commentary was also available for download to visitors' MP3 players from a kiosk located on the entrance to the exhibition, and from the client's website www.rmn.fr/picasso-et-les-maitres.

The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao has been an Acoustiguide client since 1998, won through successive competitive tenders, and, in April 2009, the Museum again chose Acoustiguide as their preferred supplier. The service includes the supply of over a thousand audio guides, staffing, and content for both permanent collection tours and temporary exhibitions in 6 languages.

From September 2009, we will be introducing our advanced multimedia system, Opus Click™, to the Museum with visual content being added to the existing permanent collection tours. The audio guide is included in the Museum's admission price (which includes the temporary exhibitions). We undertake a number of comprehensive updates each year in all languages of the tours. This often involves liaising heavily with other museums, if the exhibition has been traveling.

The Acoustiguide service for this major Spanish client is managed very effectively from London by Espro Acoustiguide Group's UK subsidiary, Acoustiguide Ltd.

TAIPEI 101 is the tallest building in Taiwan. In 2004, the international Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) awarded TAIPEI 101 with its three important Number One titles, “the World’s Highest Occupied Floor (438m),” “the World’s Tallest Roof Height (448m),” and “the Tallest Building in the World (508m).” TAIPEI 101 is the most prominent landmark in the history of Taipei economic growth and an impressive representation of the currents running through Taipei culture and history.

Acoustiguide Taiwan started to work with TAIPEI 101 Observatory in 2004. The content of the TAIPEI 101 Observatory audio tour is based on the extraordinary aerial-views of the surrounding Taipei, and offers an exciting introduction to the present cityscape as well as its history. The audio tour is designed to target visitors from all over the world. In 2008, Acoustiguide Taiwan introduced Opus Click and Opus Touch multimedia players, and thus TAIPEI Observatory became the first location in Asia to adopt this advanced audio and multimedia guide.

Image installation and better sound quality are two outstanding features in Opus Click and Opus Touch multimedia players, which greatly enhance its performance. Therefore, the original TAIPEI 101 audio guides has been updated with more visual content, such as pictures and video clips showing views and angles that cannot otherwise be reached. More practical information regarding to the culture of Taipei City has also been added. The new multimedia content has been made into two sets of travel itineraries in order to suit visitors’ touring time.

The advanced multimedia content system used in TAIPEI 101 Observatory is offered in 8 language versions: Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified), English, French, Japanese, Korean, German and Spanish. Furthermore, a Chinese educational version is provided, made especially for family tours.

The Museum of Modern Art is the world's pre-eminent collection of modern art, and is one of New York City's top visitor attractions, drawing approximately 2.5 million visitors from around the globe every year.

Acoustiguide Inc. has been the sole provider of audio tour services for the Museum of Modern Art for over thirty years. In November 2004 when MoMA's new building by architect Yoshio Tanaguchi was opened on West 53rd street in Manhattan, Acoustiguide was hired to provide a full spectrum of audio tour services, including creative content related to the Museum's permanent collections as well as their temporary exhibitions, provision of audio tour hardware, full-time staffing, financing and marketing support. MoMA provides an audio tour free of charge to every visitor.

The Orsay museum in Paris is one of the most prestigious museums in the world, and one of the largest museums in France. Orsay museum opened in 1986, in an ancient railway station built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900. You can find there paintings, drawings, decorative arts, photography and sculptures of the finest artists of the 19th century.

Espro Acoustiguide’s collaboration with Orsay museum started in February 2006. Espro Acoustiguide provided than 450 audioguides that offered 350 commentaries in 7 languages for the permanent collections.

During four years of activity at Orsay museum, Espro Acoustiguide has also realized 9 specific tours in various languages for the major temporary exhibitions.

Espro Acoustiguide is operating now 500 opus click players presenting more than 430 commentaries in 9 languages for the permanent collections, in order to satisfy most of the 4 million visitors who rush into the Orsay museum each year.

“In an industry known to be fiercely competitive, Acoustiguide’s hallmark has been their utter professionalism and objectivity, where the integrity of the company and the way it behaves rise above the ambitions and interests of individuals, and yet it has also been important to us to work with people who have a knowledge and understanding of the subject matter that goes beyond the commercial interest of their company.”
Stephen Bird, Head of Heritage Services, Bath and North East Somerset

Acoustiguide Ltd., the UK subsidiary of the Espro Acoustiguide Group, have been the provider of audio tours at the Roman Baths and the Fashion Museum since 1995. This year Acoustiguide Ltd. won a fourth consecutive contract to continue its service at the sites.

From the beginning of April 2009 Acoustiguide Ltd. have been providing over a thousand Opus Click™ players which are included in the admission price. The adult tour is offered in eight languages with additional children’s tours in English and French and a celebrity tour narrated by Bill Bryson.

With 1 million visitors per annum, a very high take up rate for the audio and a site combining internal and external areas, an excellent operational service is paramount.

Acoustiguide have provided audio tours at Westminster Abbey since 2007.

Initially the service was an optional sale of audio tours on exSite equipment. In May 2008 the Abbey swapped out to an inclusive service offering multimedia tours on two thousand Opus Click™  players to every visitor.

The tour comprises audio, text, still images and some specially commissioned videos. The English tour is narrated by Oscar-winning actor Jeremy Irons and there are ten language versions including Russian, Hungarian, Portuguese, Mandarin and Japanese. Videos are used to show areas of the Abbey which are not accessible to the public at all times.

A February 2009 CNN article on London museum says "At Westminster Abbey, the excellent, new audio is narrated by Jeremy Irons"