Host an author for Museums at Night 2013

Craig Taylor reading from his book at the London Transport Museum in 2012

Hosting an author as part of your Museums at Night event can be a rewarding experience and may help your venue to reach a new audience.  Culture24 and the Reading Agency have put together a great list of authors available for events during Museums at Night 2013.

Last year several authors participated in events all over the country including Craig Taylor appeared at the London Transport Museum, Sandy Gall at Surgeon’s Hall, Edinburgh and the feedback from the events was very positive.

If you are interested in hosting an author as part of your Museums at Night event, take a look at the list of 2013 Museums at Night Authors and decide if any of them have a connection to your venue.

Update 18/02/2013: We now have several children’s authors added to the list!

Once you’ve chosen an author take a look at the guidance notes below, get back to me or Nick with all the relevant information and we will inform the author’s publisher. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can to let you know if the author is available for your event. After that you will have direct contact with the author or their publisher to make arrangements for your event.

Do be aware that although all these authors are offering their services for free (as they are plugging new books) their publishers will expect the venue to pay for travel and accommodation costs if necessary.

Before the publisher can choose a venue for their author to appear at they need to be reassured about a number of things.

Please have a look at the following questions and respond in no more than two pages of A4, saving your document with the name of the author you are pitching for and your venue’s name, e.g. Joe Bloggs Museum of Stars.

•    Do you have a budget to pay for the author’s travel and if necessary accommodation?

•    Can you show you have a good track record of events (not necessarily with large audiences)? You just need to be able to demonstrate your expertise in running a regular events programme, with or without authors.

•    Where and when will the event be held?

•    Who is your target audience? How many people are you expecting to attend?

•    Will there be other speakers? And, if so, who?

•    Will the event be chaired? Who by?

•    Who is selling the books?

•    Is the event ticketed?

•    How will you promote the event?

•    What format will the event take: panel, debate, workshop, reading?

•    Who is the main venue contact for the author?

•    Travel: how will the author get to the museum and who will meet and greet them?

If you’d like to print these questions out to discuss with your team, you can download these questions as a PDF here.

We hope there is somebody on the list that you want to work with. Please get in touch if you have any questions: talk to Nick on 01273 623279 or nick@culture24.org.uk, or Rosie on 01273 623336 or rosie@culture24.org.uk.

Good luck!

Guest post: Louise West from Jane Austen’s House Museum on the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice – and a Museums at Night readathon!

Our latest guest post is by Louise West from Jane Austen’s House Museum, and is specially timed to coincide with Pride and Prejudice being published 200 years ago today! Louise explains how plans for her venue’s Museums at Night readathon event developed …

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The 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice today – and a whole year of celebrations throughout 2013 – gives us the opportunity to alert the world to the importance of Jane Austen’s House Museum as the home of Jane Austen’s writing. As one of the most popular books ever written, and one which has been translated into numerous languages, Pride and Prejudice has instant impact and appeal.

We always aim to attract as wide an audience as possible, and our exhibition and events programme will help to extend that reach. We have a travelling exhibition celebrating the novel and its appeal: this will travel to libraries in central London, discovery centres in Hampshire and locations used for the various adaptations.

The novel really comes to life when read out loud, partly because Jane Austen excelled at writing dialogue.

A reading of the entire novel in one day will naturally take us into the evening – and this is how we will celebrate Museums at Night.

Louise West reading a copy of Pride and Prejudice (c) Isabel Snowden

Reading and listening to Jane Austen’s words in the fading light of her village home will evoke her spirit most powerfully. Each chapter will be read by someone different, and as there are over 60 chapters, this means that at least that number of people will be able to participate in this event.

In 2011, to mark the bicentenary of Sense and Sensibility, we introduced readings in the Museum for the first time. Our patron, actor Elizabeth Garvie who played Elizabeth Bennet in the 1980 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice, gave a number of volunteers a ‘masterclass’ in reading.

Some of our volunteers had been hiding their light under a bushel and read beautifully. This was a skill which we hadn’t previously realised we could use in the Museum!

Jane Austen’s House Museum. Image shared under a Creative Commons licence by Flickr user iknow-uk

At the time we had staff reading in the house at several points during the day. This had some appeal, but sometimes visitors didn’t quite know how to respond, and felt a bit uncomfortable: should they stand and listen, or should they continue their journey around the Museum?

We feel that by holding an actual readathon for Museums at Night 2013 we will create more interest, and also that the audience will understand how to react.

When Jane Austen first received her copy of Pride and Prejudice, that very night she sat down and read aloud with her mother to an unsuspecting neighbour:

‘On the very day of the Books coming, & in the eveng. we set fairly at it & read half the 1st vol. to her.’

We will not be recreating this original reading, but rather involving as many people as possible in the experience of hearing Jane’s words read aloud in the house where she wrote them.

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Louise West has been Curator of Jane Austen’s House Museum in September 2010 having previously fulfilled the role of Education and Collections Manager at the Museum.

“It was really Jane Austen that bought me to Hampshire 30 years ago. My grandparents lived in the county but I lived in Manchester and then London. I wanted to work with Hampshire’s museums and secretly hoped I’d get a job at Jane Austen’s House one day.”

After a career break to raise her four children, Louise took an MA in Museum and Gallery Education at the Institute of Education, London University and worked with many organisations, including the Mary Rose Museum, Southampton City Museums, Winchester Cathedral and the V&A.

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Thanks, Louise!

If you’re reading this and you have an interesting story to tell or case study to share about planning or marketing after-hours events, I’d love to publish your guest posts as well. Please get in touch at rosie@culture24.org.uk.

Event review: Connect10 brings Jon McGregor to RRS Discovery

Today I’m happy to share a couple of guest posts reviewing Museums at Night events from the weekend! The first comes from Mark Macleod, who wrote for us previously about how Museums at Night collaborates with the Festival of Museums.

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What should you expect when attending a Museums at Night event? Should research be done in advance? Is it appropriate to bring your parents? A number of questions I considered before attending the Connect10 winning event at the RRS Discovery in Dundee with author Jon McGregor presiding.

I’m not totally ignorant about the southern hemisphere, having visited RRS Discovery a number of times and enjoyed learning more about the travelers who used her.

When I heard that McGregor was going to talk about his residency with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) it was definitely something I wanted to attend. A couple of scientist friends of mine have gathered data in Antarctica and I was very keen to hear how an artist’s residency worked, and discover the experience of someone expanding their comfort zone in harsh environment for subjective art rather than objective science.

McGregor immediately set the mood arriving with music and a video playing what looked like my earlier journey from St Andrews to Dundee, but which I’m guessing was his rainy trip towards RAF Brize Norton for the RAF flight to the Falkland Islands.

Jon McGregor’s suitcase of props (c) Mark MacLeod

A brief setting up of props and the story began, from the self-titled traveling salesman. We heard about his flight and transfer to the boat RRS James Clark Ross at Port Stanley, which was to be his home until they reached the BAS base in Antarctica.

Daily pictures from the top deck provided an indication of the beauty, isolation and general sublime nature of the open sea and finally the approach with icebergs.

McGregor was constantly creating work, sending 100 word emails daily to friends and associates containing his latest news and thoughts. Before current technologies reached the BAS ship travellers were able to send one 100 word telegram every week – it really was a place to get away from it all – but now the ship is hooked up to the internet, and McGregor wanted to reflect on this development.

The final image he shared was the most poignant: the ship had been breaking through the ice layer and was now only 80 miles from the base, but the ice was thicker than usual and the captain took the difficult decision to abandon the attempt and return to Stanley to refuel and try again later in the summer.

The scientists would wait on the Falklands and expect to try again after Christmas, but McGregor would fly home. He was genuinely disappointed by the ‘so near and yet so far’ nature of the trip and although he has yet to produce an “artistic work” from the journey, he doesn’t blame his not reaching Antarctica.

Before and during the trip McGregor read memoirs, diaries and other recollections of previous adventurers to the South Pole and his observation was that on the trip down everyone was calm, factual and generally preparing themselves for the unexpected.

Even now he claims it is extremely difficult, possibly impossible, to describe such an environment as this place. What adjectives and nouns can be used for an experience and landscape that has been shared by so few?

Author Jon McGregor, about to startle Mark and his parents with a reading (c) Mark Macleod

The final part of the evening was McGregor reading from his latest publication This isn’t the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You which amused, stunned and made me regress several years and squirm as I sat beside my parents.

The most memorable piece was ‘Looking up Vagina’ which proved the hit of the night, and which McGregor explained was written after learning his friend (now a poet) read the dictionary from start to finish as a teenager.

As Sesame Street might say, “Today was brought to you by the letter V and the number (Connect) 10.” I for one am glad to have voted and secured McGregor’s  visit to Dundee.

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Mark Macleod is Operations and Projects Curator at the Museum of the University of St Andrews: you can follow them on Twitter as @MUSA_StAndrews.

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Thanks Mark! If you went to a Museums at Night event, please let us know your thoughts by filling in this survey, so we can improve the festival in future years.

Guest Post: Emma Black explains how Surgeons’ Hall Museum secured author Sandy Gall for Museums at Night

Today’s guest post comes from Emma Black, who works on events and marketing at Surgeons’ Hall Museum, Edinburgh.

A young visitor discovers the handling collection (c) Surgeons’ Hall Museum

When Culture24 announced their ‘Authors for Museums at Night‘ programme, bringing writers into Museums at Night 2012 venues in partnership with the Reading Agency, an exciting opportunity arose for Surgeons’ Hall Museum.

For me, the author and publication that stood out on the list was writer and broadcaster Sandy Gall and his recent publication The War Against the Taliban: Why it all went wrong in Afghanistan.

After receiving the initial notification, I sent an email to Nick Stockman, and thought ‘Well, at least I’ve tried, but the competition for this talk will be really high!’

I received a very quick response, then Nick and I began to discuss the connections between The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, where Surgeons’ Hall Museum belongs, the ethos of Museums at Night and the work of Mr Gall.

Our collections are a very good fit with Mr Gall’s subject area. Besides his work in journalism, Sandy and his wife Eleanor established the charity Sandy Gall’s Afghanistan Appeal, which has been treating disabled Afghans and providing support to people who have lost limbs in combat since 1986.

Our Museum houses one of the largest and most historic collections of surgical pathology in the World. A large section of the collection pertains to military surgery, with instruments and specimens from conflicts including the Napoleonic War, American Civil War and World War I.

The collections demonstrate the debilitating illnesses and tragic loss of life which continues to happen in situations of conflict and the continuing medical innovations that are needed to deal with these causalities.

Children discover pathology at Surgeons’ Hall Museum (c) Surgeons’ Hall Museum

Besides the links between our collections, an important factor for our selection was our demonstrable enthusiasm to engage the public in historic and topical subjects.

I have been working on the Museum’s public engagement since 2009; we now offer a diverse range of activities and in two years our visitor figures have doubled and we have built a database of loyal supporters who regularly attend our events.

Our daytime and evening events on 19th May really demonstrate our diversity! We will be starting off with ‘Casualty 1852,’ an afternoon of ‘casualty’ stage make up by Metamorface, and a unique 19th century diagnosis by our resident Victorian surgeon, Mr Alexander Barbour. This event also features 2 for 1 tickets and Museum collections, funded by Museums Galleries Scotland.

Finally, we’ll have a good tidy up before Mr Gall’s Lecture begins at 6pm!

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Emma Black has worked on Public Engagement for Surgeons’ Hall Museum since 2009. She previously worked in Adaptive and Neural Computation at the University of Edinburgh whilst completing a first degree in Ancient History and Classics, and a Masters degree in Classical Art and Archaeology.

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Thanks, Emma!

If you’d like to write a guest post or case study for this blog about any aspect of event planning or marketing in arts or heritage venues, please drop me a line at rosie@culture24.org.uk or call me on 01273 623336.

Would you like an author to speak at your Museums at Night event?

Building on the success of our Museums at Night event package ideas (we’ve already had lots of responses to our sleepover subsidy opportunity), we’re delighted to offer UK museums, galleries, libraries, archives and heritage sites the chance to host an author for your Museums at Night 2012 event!

Culture24 has teamed up with some of the UK’s top publishing houses, via The Reading Agency, to offer venues the chance to work with authors on events for Museums at Night.

Do your visitors enjoy books? Would they like to meet an author for Museums at Night? Image courtesy Jackie Kever, shared under a Flickr Creative Commons licence

A range of writers promoting newly published books are available for evening Q&A sessions or talks, followed by a book signing, during the weekend of 18th – 20th May 2012.

The publishers will not be asking for an appearance fee, but a contribution towards expenses may be negotiated under some circumstances.

Download the full list of available authors and information about their books here.

If you’re interested in running a Museums at Night event involving an author, please contact Nick Stockman at nick@culture24.org.uk or call 01273 623279, telling him which author you’d like, by the end of the day on Friday 9th March.

NB. This opportunity was announced in our Museums at Night e-newsletter first thing this morning. Do you receive this e-bulletin, which includes news of partnerships and promotional opportunities your venue may like to take advantage of? If not, you’re missing out!

Sign up for the free Museums at Night e-newsletter here.