Adam Clarke on bringing history to life with Minecraft for Museums at Night

Our latest guest post comes from Adam Clarke, freelance artist, film maker and games-for-learning consultant. Adam describes how he got involved in the Tullie House Art Gallery Takeover, and the part Minecraft has to play in engaging new audiences with heritage and history.

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I had the opportunity to get involved in the Tullie House Art Gallery Takeover/Museums At Night project after I talked with the team about Minecraft and how it can be used to create engaging heritage and historical narratives. Excited by the possibilities this opened up, I was invited to work with the project team to create the event. Together, we set about filling the gallery space in a way that had never happened before.

Visitors playing with paper craft and Minecraft at Tullie House. Photo (c) Gavin Wilson /  bangyourdrum

Using six massive interactive projections from the video game Minecraft featuring my topographical Cumbrian landscape, including a partially constructed Hadrian’s Wall, we gave people the opportunity to visit an online Minecraft world and play live with other people from around the world.

The museum archaeologist showed Roman artifacts not usually on display, giving people a chance to discover them in a new and intimate way. He also took time during the evening to build a Roman Fort and parts of Hadrian’s Wall in Minecraft with guests.

Minecraft in the Museum. Photo (c) Gavin Wilson / bangyourdrum

We had exclusive access to the Voxelbox server, possibly the best Minecraft creators on the planet. We were joined in person by Stephen Reid from A Higher Place, who talked about games-based learning.

We placed large glass bowls of Lego on plinths to play with, there were tables with paper-craft activities to engage in and even historical costumes for participants to get creative with dressing up and drawing. To set the ambience, there was a DJ filling the space with live mixing, and a bar.

Big screens, paper-craft, glitter, Lego, colourful lights, music, artifacts, archaeology and amazing creators all got to work to turn the museum into something truly magical, but perhaps the most magical element of all were the people who came along and completed that transformation.

People from all walks of life came together – all different ages, with different backgrounds and involvement with museums, technology, games and creative arts, including the curious few who wanted to find out what on earth it was all about – and everyone got involved. I saw people making, engaging, discovering, playing, sharing ideas and conversations, hatching plans, re-imagining familiar landscapes and finding their way around completely new spaces. Everyone was having a go, and having fun.

The Art Gallery Takeover. Photo (c) Gavin Wilson / bangyourdrum

I am currently developing projects using 3D printed artworks in public spaces, with a special interest in museums. Museums are traditionally about housing the intimate objects of the past. When we visit a museum, we engage in a dialogue with these objects and the people who once made them, used them or collected them. By making 3D printing accessible, museums can open up that dialogue in ways that empower the individual and community to create their own objects, their own living history and dialogues with the present, the past and the future.

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Adam Clarke is a freelance artist, film-maker and games-for-learning consultant and instructor. He has many years experience in running creative workshops for schools, museums, hospitals and within community settings, often pulling together his skills from traditional arts, digital animation/film and virtual simulations/games to deliver fun and participant led work. His is passionate about the environment, history, community participation, video games and new technology.

Thanks Adam! 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.

Guest post: Sarah Power brings steampunk to Norwich’s Dragon Hall

On the eve of Museums at Night 2013, Sarah Power describes the inspiration behind her plans for the steampunk event at Norwich’s Dragon Hall.

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Dragon Hall is a unique Grade 1 listed medieval trading hall dating from around 1430, renowned for its spectacular timber crown-post roof and intricately carved and painted dragon.  It’s located on Norwich’s historic King Street which has seen, and still sees, most of life.

Looking up at the beams in the Great Hall (c) Dragon Hall

So close to Connect10…

Our Museums at Night event In the Company of the Curious: Steampunk at Dragon Hall takes place tomorrow night – Thursday 16 May. It will see the culmination of a whirlwind few months for our museum. After the shock of losing by 5 votes in the Connect10 competition to the wonderful Manchester Museums, I have been working hard to develop an utterly unusual alternative evening for our visitors.

Anachronistic inspiration

We are lucky to have a tireless team of volunteer researchers who are slowly discovering and revealing more details about the history of the Dragon Hall site. One of their recent research projects has been an investigation into the census from 1841 to 1911 to find out more about the people that lived on this site during that period.

As Norwich’s population grew, so did the need for low-cost housing. This was solved by dividing the once-grand houses into tenements and filling the yards at the rear with poor quality housing. Dragon Hall was one such building, and the group’s research revealed fascinating insights into the people who lived and worked in the squalid environment of King Street.

But what if…?

Museums at Night is a wonderful opportunity to create an evening of interesting and alternative events which it would be difficult to present during the day-to-day opening of our museums. This is where ‘Victorian Steampunk’ popped to my mind!

An example of steampunk style

This fascinating all-inclusive subculture has taken the UK by storm in the past few years. It’s broadly inspired by the industrialised Western civilization of the 19th century, but set in a post-apocalyptic future during which steam power has regained mainstream use.

See a darker side to Dragon Hall for Museums at Night

Visually fascinating, morally delightful and philosophically optimistic, Steampunk has it all and with the freedom to explore the era in a creative way, I couldn’t resist putting on a Steampunk evening here at Dragon Hall.

Army of Mice will be performing live at the steampunk night

The evening is packed full of Steampunk delights including a Victorian peepshow, live bands, a fireplace feature film, parlour games, live poetry and interactive performances, tea duelling and much much more!

The Familiars: just part of Dragon Hall’s exciting lineup

We look forward to welcoming a colourful crowd for our Museums at Night steampunk evening: find out more and book tickets here.

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 Sarah Power has worked in the heritage industry since graduating from the School of History at UEA in 2007. She was thrilled to become the Heritage Engagement Manager at Dragon Hall in 2010 tasked with taking the existing learning and volunteer programme forward. With a passion for learning for all, Sarah has developed an exciting education programme to promote innovative learning experiences and fuel the curiosity of all Dragon Hall’s visitors.

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Thanks, Sarah!

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 at your arts or heritage venue, I’d love to publish your guest posts as well. Please email rosie@culture24.org.uk.

Guest post: Nerys Williams on staging live music at Gladstone Pottery Museum

Just a few days to go till Museums at Night 2013 kicks off on Thursday 16 May! Our latest Museums at Night guest post is by Nerys Williams, who discusses Gladstone Pottery Museum’s first ever Museums at Night event. 

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The sun sets behind the bottle oven at Gladstone Pottery Museum.

We haven’t taken part in Museums At Night before and I’m busy planning our first ever foray into this new and exciting territory. This is thanks to a bursary from Culture24 for being runner up in the Connect10 competition, another first for me which had surprisingly wonderful results.

For some time I’ve been working with local artists who will be putting on a multimedia extravaganza at our site this September. They seemed the ideal people to help with an after hours event and are a fab bunch of creative, positive types who immediately set about planning something very special.

My humble (and fairly simple to carry out, but bang went that idea….) plans for an evening opening went out the window within about 30 seconds of our first meeting. ‘A Night At The Kiln’ quickly took shape and will be an evening of music, poetry, art and film on Thursday 16 May. Scores have been composed, the line-up grew and grew and it promises to be a really good ‘do’.

The iconic bottle oven at Gladstone Pottery Museum.

A trombonist will be playing in one of our bottle ovens. Iconic is a word so overused you can almost hear it creaking from the weight of hyperbole loaded upon it – but bottle ovens really do deserve this accolade. They’re huge, imposing brick structures once used to fire pottery. To have musicians playing a piece inspired by the pottery industry inside one is an exciting prospect. Coincidentally they also have ace acoustics.

Internationally renowned soprano Denise Leigh has kindly agreed to sing at the event – I’m still a little stunned by this! Putting an opera star under the stars at our site for Museums at Night was beyond my imagination (or contact list).

Along with piano, clarinet, harmonica, singing children and poetry there’s a lot of material in the programme written about our local heritage. We even have a ‘spit’ poet. Not being as ‘down with the kids’ as I thought I was, this had to be explained to me – for any others who are looking blank it’s a bit like rap. Local artist Rob Pointon will be painting it all as it happens.

It’s good for me to work with artists who put creative impact first and practical concerns further down the list. I do occasionally have to urge to stand on a table and demand lists and risk assessments in a matronly voice but our Museums at Night event is making me realise what can be achieved with willing partners.

I have vetoed the Chinese lanterns though. My worry that they’d land on something/someone causing a flaming fireball and blackening the museum’s name with metaphorical soot forever, was too much for me to bear. Even with my newfound fondness for the lovable but as-difficult-to-herd-as-cats art world, I have to draw the line somewhere!

An example of the pottery painting at Gladstone Pottery Museum.

 It’s back to the practicalities for me now, with press releases to write, posters to produce and a full on assault on social media to complete.

Come and join us! Tickets are £5 which includes a glass of wine or fruit juice, and can bought in person from Gladstone Pottery Museum or by calling 01782 237777. Doors open at 7.15pm.

For more information on Gladstone see www.stokemuseums.org.uk or our Gladstone Pottery Museum Facebook page.

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Nerys Williams

Nerys Williams is the Audience Development Officer for Gladstone, is passionate about the site and fond of industrial heritage and cake. She plans and publicises events of all types, from the International Marquetry Exhibition to making Pigoons (balloon pigs) during half term. Nerys loves the variety of her job – she can be organising a book signing by a local author one day and discussing turning circles and timetables for a classic bus rally the next. Museum life is never boring.

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Thanks, Nerys!

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 at your arts or heritage venue, I’d love to publish your guest posts as well. Please email rosie@culture24.org.uk.

Guest Post: Ross Graham on the Granary Gallery’s portrait evening

Hope everyone had a good long weekend! Our latest Museums at Night guest post is by Ross Graham, discussing the newly-converted Granary Gallery’s first ever Museums at Night event.

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Visitors admire some of the art work on display in the gallery.

The Granary Gallery is a very recently opened gallery space located in the newly converted (you guessed it) Old Granary building found on the historic walls of that most northern of north towns, Berwick Upon Tweed. Although the gallery is located in The Granary (now a very modern YHA building with great food), it is owned and run by Berwick Visual Arts, part of The Maltings Theatre and Cinema which is just 2 minutes away.

A Portrait of Portraits, our Museums at Night event

This will be the first time we have taken part in Museums at Night and are very eagerly awaiting the response we will get.

For a small town, Berwick-upon-Tweed has a large bunch of artists from all kinds of backgrounds, with all kinds of skills. With this event we are hoping to draw them all in – painters, sketchers, crafters, photographers and film makers of all ages.

The evening will be an open door event with no pre-booking required, and the activities will be… well, they will be ‘active’ from the start! We currently have the Ruth Borchard Collection of Self-Portraits in the Gallery, so what better than a night for visitors to create their own self-portraits?

There will be all kinds of materials available from simple pencils and paper to craft materials and even (fingers crossed) digital face editing. We will also have an artist on site who will be creating portraits for visitors even if they don’t want to try designing their own – although we hope that everybody who visits on the night will be inspired to create something.

Visitors looking at the artwork in the Granary Gallery

Marketing

To spread the word about our Museums at Night event we have done the usual: creating posters, sending emails, using our social media channels, spreading  word-of-mouth through gossip, sending owls etc.

However, the new marketing idea we’re really excited about is starting a competition. We are asking people to submit photos of their own portraits to our Facebook and Instagram pages. The top 5 pictures on each page that get the most ‘likes’ by the 17^th May will be put up for judgement by visitors at the actual event – and the winner will receive complimentary film tickets to The Maltings.

See you on the night!

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Ross Graham has worked in The Maltings Theatre and Cinema for about 6 years: he has worked in most areas throughout that time and now works at the Box Office, helps with Youth Drama and is the Education and Community Development Worker for the Theatre.

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Thanks, Ross!

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 at your arts or heritage venue, I’d love to publish your guest posts as well. Please email rosie@culture24.org.uk.

Guest Post: Rona MacAulay and Mark Gibbs on Tullie House’s Art Gallery takeover

Our latest Museums at Night guest post is by Mark Gibbs and Rona MacAulay from Tullie House, introducing two very exciting Museums at Night events intended for two different types of audience.

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Tullie House, shared under a Creative Commons licence by Flickr user dvdbramhall

In 2012 Tullie House ran a family-oriented Museums at Night event based on our ‘Secret Egypt’ exhibition. Later in 2012 Tullie House was fortunate to receive Arts Council Funding as a consortium of museums with The Wordsworth Trust and the Lakeland Arts Trust. With the recruitment of new staff, we were able to widen our audience focus and so have decided to run two separate events this year.

On Thursday 16 May 2013, we’re proud to present The Art Gallery Takeover – A Magical Landscape!

For one night only, we hope to open a portal to an amazing parallel universe, a place where our 16 + visitors can chill out to ambient music, have a drink and be drawn in to creating an alternative Cumbria filled with fantastical buildings and strange landscapes.

Cumbria isn’t short on amazing landscapes and historic structures what with fells and Hadrian’s Wall, but we hope to create a new virtual world using the wonders of the computer game Minecraft.  Now for all I know you’re an experienced Minecraft architect and think nothing of building a 3D Taj Mahal, complete with solar powered jacuzzis in those pools out the front, but for the rest of us… it’s digital Lego, with bells on.

So we will have volunteers from the gaming community helping visitors build their own virtual buildings and landforms, placed on a virtual Cumbria and projected huge to form a light sculpture. Our Archaeology Curator will be supervising the recreation of Carlisle’s Roman fort… which is neat, because it would have stood right where the gallery is now.

Gamers from around the world are invited to get building, real estate prices are rising fast! Watch this space for how to join in.

There will also be real Lego, paper crafts and ‘fancy dress figure drawing’ too, essential components of any alternative party I’m sure you’ll agree!

Secondly, on Friday 17 May 2013 we’ve planned a family-friendly Roman night - Legends and Luguvalium: Explore Roman Carlisle!

As May is Local History Month, we will be celebrating all things Roman. Staff and visitors will be encouraged to dress up and get into the spirit of things. There will be a photographer on the night who will print out photographs of families in Roman costume which they can take home with them as a souvenir.

The evening will include storytelling sessions with Roman soldier Ajax who will tell visitors about his life and duties. Despite gambling being illegal in Rome, there appears to have been a particular fondness for games of chance at the time.

Tullie Mouse will be part of the family trail through the gallery

Visitors will be invited to create Roman coins out of clay and gold paint before playing our human ‘fruit machine’ to win prizes in our craft activity. Tullie House’s curator of archaeology will be leading object handling sessions with visitors throughout the night where they will be able to handle and learn about real Roman artefacts. I hope that the evening will showcase Tullie House as an informative, entertaining and welcoming environment for all ages and stages.

Marketing

To publicise our Museums at Night events, Tullie House has a strong relationship with our local radio station BBC Radio Cumbria and they are brilliant at interviewing members of staff in the run up to special events.

The evening has been promoted to our current audience in our recent Easter holiday family friendly sessions, when we invited visitors to come back again with their families. We’ll also be using our Facebook and Twitter accounts to create excitement and keep our online followers informed.

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Rona MacAulay is the Family Learning Officer at Tullie House. This is the first event that she and Mark have run at Tullie House, and they are looking forward to sharing their tips and inspiring stories from this year’s event next year! Rona.macaulay@tulliehouse.org

Mark Gibbs is the Secondary and Post 16 Formal Learning Officer at Tullie House mark.gibbs@tulliehouse.org

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Thanks, Rona and Mark!

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 at your arts or heritage venue, I’d love to publish your guest posts as well. Please email rosie@culture24.org.uk.

Guest post: Antonia Grant describes Handel House Museum’s first Museums at Night event

Here at C24 Towers we’re delighted with this year’s BBC History Magazine Guide to Museums at Night: copies of the brochure should now have arrived at all participating venues. We’re dressing up smartly to head off to the Museums at Night launch at the Cutty Sark this evening, and will report back tomorrow!

Our latest guest post is by Antonia Grant from London’s Handel House Museum, who introduces their first ever Museums at Night event.

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Handel House Museum is located just a stone’s throw from Bond Street, tucked away on Brook Street. It offers the more intrepid tourist a historic haven to relax and have an intimate glimpse into the life and home of one of the world’s greatest composers, George Frideric Handel.

The museum, part of London Small Historic Houses, is built over two floors reflecting both the private and public persona of Handel, while intriguingly, over 300 years later another iconic composer and musician moved in next door, the legendary Jimi Hendrix. You couldn’t get a more musically fantastic cocktail!

A harpsichord on display at Handel House Museum (c) Matthew Hollow

Overcoming challenges – Hallelujah!

I was very excited at the prospect of Handel House taking part in this year’s Museums at Night for the first time. I’d run a similar event last year at Edinburgh University’s Collection of Historic Musical Instruments, which proved extremely popular, attracting a diverse audience. At Handel House, again, one of the main challenges was the space and accessibility.

Our idea is to have a series of activities taking place throughout the evening, centered on this year’s theme ‘Handel by Candle!’ We’ll be running candlelit tours and harpsichord recitals for small, intimate groups as well as offering free admission for visitors from 6:30 – 10pm.

Visitors viewing the bedroom at Handel House (c) Niusia Winczewski

A unique selling point

As part of the museum’s public events programme, a Baroque music concert takes place in the historic Rehearsal and Performance room. This is the very room Handel would have used to rehearse his next operas or oratorios to an invited audience and we keep this tradition alive every week.

By offering a concert during Museums at Night we hope to share this special space with a new audience. There will be an opportunity for our younger visitors to interact with the House on the evening too, with fun family trails and activity sheets and Georgian costumes to dress up in.

Publicity tips – from Baroque to Rock star!

As the evening will be open to families and adults, we’ll use a number of ways to reach out to both these groups. We will issue a press release to local and targeted newspapers and magazines, as well as adding the event on various family-friendly and event listings sites. Not forgetting social media: Facebook and Twitter are great ways to reach our audience and link with similar organisations and people.

We’ll build interest by revealing different elements of the evening – but not too much to spoil the surprise! And so as not to forget our already loyal audience, we will let them know about the event by including it in our season brochure and monthly e-newsletter.

Young visitors dressing up at Handel House Museum (c) Niusia Winczewski

As it will be the first time we’ve participated in the Museums at Night festival, we can’t wait to find out how it goes!

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Antonia Grant has worked at Handel House Museum for over a year as the Learning and Events Officer. She obtained a BA Degree in History and Classical Civilisation from University College Dublin followed by a MSc in History, Theory and Display from Edinburgh University.

Antonia is interested in making the arts as accessible as possible to a wide audience, and creating innovative and exciting learning programmes and events.

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Thanks, Antonia!

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 at your arts or heritage venue, I’d love to publish your guest posts as well. Please email rosie@culture24.org.uk.

Guest post: Lottie Muir describes the Brunel Museum’s Midnight Apothecary pop-up cocktail bar

Our latest guest post comes from Lottie Muir, gardener and mixologist at London’s Brunel Museum, who shares how her team devised and promoted their Museums at Night event involving “the hottest pop up cocktail bar in London”.

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It is amazing to think that this time last year, the garden in which we hold our pop-up rooftop garden cocktail bar Midnight Apothecary had not even been built.  Twelve months on we are the proud hosts of “the hottest pop up cocktail bar in London” (Evening Standard, August 2012) with plans well under way for Midnight Apothecary events throughout the rest of 2013.

Deckchairs set up in preparation for a night-time event (c) Marianne Majerus

 Our enchanted secret rooftop garden sits above Brunel’s Thames Tunnel, part of the Brunel Museum, in Rotherhithe, south east London. 

It had previously been a rather neglected fifty foot diameter circular roof space planted with low maintenance “park plants”.  We transformed it last April with the help of local volunteers into a community potager teeming with vegetables, herbs and flowers.  While it was designed for the enjoyment of museum visitors and local volunteers, including school groups, who share the harvest, the concept of a cocktail bar had never entered our minds.

Last May, the museum director, Robert Hulse, asked me to come up with an activity to bring in a new audience on the Saturday evening of Museums at Night.  With less than a month to plan I thought, flowers and alcohol: you can’t go wrong!  Luckily the museum and gardens are licensed premises where we can serve alcohol.

Floral cocktails (c) Marianne Majerus

The Midnight Apothecary was born, initially as a one-off casual garden cocktail bar, using herbs and flowers to infuse and garnish the cocktails.  The name ‘Midnight Apothecary’ had a night time gardening feel to it which seemed appropriate for the occasion.  We tucked brightly coloured fake birds and flares in amongst the flowers, stoked up a firepit, put out some deckchairs on the “beach” and with less than 24 hours to go, built a cocktail bar that resembles a potting bench.  A couple of local musicians completed the picture.

Visitors enjoying drinks as night falls at the Midnight Apothecary event (c) Eleanor Salter Thorn

Initially we posted some information to Time Out, the Evening Standard and Metro.  Our Events Manager is a fantastic Twitter user and we also handed out fliers at the local tube stations and put posters up in local shops, pubs and libraries.

We knew we might be on to a winner when Time Out made it their “Pick of the Night”.   Over 120 people came to our first event and imbibed honey and basil dacquiris, whisky with chocolate mint and gin and lavender fizz.  These were washed down with soup, sausages, elderflower fritters and toasted marshmallows.

Midnight Apothecary has grown, as has the garden.  Following our hugely successful first night we decided to run it as a weekly event throughout the summer and autumn of last year. We have held monthly special events throughout the winter.  Our guests are mixed but predominantly young (21-45), style conscious lovers of pop-up events, cocktails and gardens.  This is a new audience for the museum and they are becoming repeat visitors – not just for Midnight Apothecary, but for our concerts and other events.  We regularly get 250 guests on a Saturday night and 400 guests at special events such as Bonfire Night or Halloween.

The Midnight Apothecary bar up and running (c) Eleanor Salter Thorn

A major factor in our success was a number of favourable online reviews at the start.  These soon seem to snowball once an event sounds ‘hot’.  It required concerted effort at first by approaching event reviewers with enticing copy and images.  But it paid off with great articles in the Evening Standard, the Independent on Sunday and The Telegraph.  A lot of our guests are avid users of social media and thereby do a lot of PR for us with their own reviews and photos from the night.

A happy group of visitors in the Brunel Museum garden at night (c) Eleanor Salter Thorn

We are hard at work preparing for our 2013 season which starts weekly on Saturdays from Easter.  And we’re going to be heavily involved in the Chelsea Fringe Show this year, designing the Chelsea Fringe Cocktail!

Our major lesson from last year is to ticket events – not only can you be sure that you know exactly how many guests are coming but you can maintain a relaxed and well managed operation as opposed to managing a scrum when it gets too popular.  Quite a nice problem to have!

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Lottie Muir is the gardener at the Brunel Museum and creator of Midnight Apothecary. Details of this project and other events can be found at her website www.thecocktailgardener.co.uk.  For details of other events at the Brunel Museum visit http://www.brunel-museum.org.uk

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Thanks Lottie!

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 at your arts or heritage venue, I’d love to publish your guest posts as well. Please get in touch at rosie@culture24.org.uk.

Guest post: Marketing case study from Rebecca Clay at the Museum of Army Flying

Our latest guest post is by Rebecca Clay from the Museum of Army Flying! Rebecca tells us a bit more about the museum’s plans for a late night behind-the-scenes tour of this very special venue…

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The Museum of Army Flying is a medium sized military museum between Andover and Salisbury. It houses a range of Army aircraft, and is a charitable trust that employs a close knit team of professionals to conserve and communicate its incredible collection.

Programming for specific audiences

This time last year, after being in post for about a month, it became obvious to me that two target audiences would benefit most from an events programme at the Museum of Army Flying: Family and Community and Traditional Culture Vultures.

I had experience of running evening and afternoon events in previous employment positions, and knew that if marketed correctly they could be incredibly successful and rewarding. With this in mind I planned a two year programme of events to tie in with anniversaries and seasonal occasions.

One of the events I really wanted to run was a Culture24 Museums at Night event, specifically a behind-the-scenes tour that would give the ‘die hard’ fans of the museum everything they could dream of.

Entitled ‘The Curator’s Cupboard’, I wanted this event to open up some of the unseen treasures of our collections, including items from World War One flying aces, a sure fire hit with our enthusiast audience.

Poster promoting the Curator’s Cupboard Museums at Night event

Overcoming challenges and adding value

One challenge that we’ll face by running a behind-the-scenes, out-of-hours event is the restrictions that have to be placed on numbers. This, coupled with the costs of keeping the museum open after hours, means that we have to charge more than we have for our previous events.

However, this limitation actually had a positive effect for our team, as we plotted together how to make it bigger and better, heaping added value and once-in-a-lifetime experiences into the event to ensure that people weren’t frightened off by the price tag.

This included planning a series of mini-talks around the museum by veteran pilots and experts about the different aircraft we have on display. One of these will be about our experimental aircraft, which are super quirky and a definite crowd pleaser.

A unique selling point – “I’ve flown that one!”

A remarkable bit of good fortune struck when one of our volunteers mentioned he thought he had flown two of the aircraft on display in the museum. I stress that he had not only flown the aircraft type but the actual aircraft on display (he checked the tail numbers against his log book) so he can give visitors first hand knowledge about our aircraft during their working life.

Army Helicopter

Publicity tips

To publicise the event I have gone all out – well, as all out as you can go without a budget! The press release has gone out and has already been featured in some of our local newspapers. I will also issue a photocall invitation to local press photographers, so the publicity will hopefully have a life even after the event takes place.

I also issue posters and leaflets for every event and send them to local libraries, museums and Tourist Information Centres. My top tip for getting radio coverage is to upload all your events onto the radio station’s calendar on their website; they’ll often mention them if they get a chance.

To say we are really looking forward to the event is an understatement – I often get more excited by our objects than the public!

Here’s to Museums at Night!

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Rebecca Clay has worked at the Museum of Army Flying as Marketing and Audience Development for nearly a year. Previously she worked in Marketing and Project Officer roles for Creswell Crags in North Nottinghamshire (currently shortlisted for World Heritage Status).

Rebecca was awarded her CIM Professional Diploma in Marketing in 2010, and also has an Honours degree in Cultural Heritage from the University of Manchester. She is a self-professed geek interested in all things web, particularly WordPress websites and social media.

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Thanks, Rebecca! 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 at your arts or heritage venue, I’d love to publish your guest posts as well. Please get in touch at rosie@culture24.org.uk.

Guest post: Emma McKenzie on Ryedale Folk Museum’s behind the scenes tour

Our latest guest post is by Emma McKenzie from the Ryedale Folk Museum! Emma gives us an insight into the museums plans for a late night behind-the-scenes tour of this very special venue…

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The Ryedale Folk Museum is a small independent museum occupying a six acre site in the small village of Hutton-le-Hole, on the edge of the North York Moors. It was created by local people out of a passion for their heritage and we have, and always will be committed to being a part of the community we inhabit. The Museum was started in the 1930s by volunteers and was officially opened in 1964.

Rebuilding Harome Manor

As a small rural museum, one of our greatest challenges is to find ways to offer something extra special. Our regular program of events is held during the day; we rarely organise evening events during the main summer season, so opening up in May for an evening event is a new thing for the museum. We wanted to play our part in something bigger and being a part of Museums at Night is really important to us as a smaller museum.

We see Museums at Night as a great opportunity for us to fully connect with our audiences and show them the real ethos of the museum. Therefore when it came to planning our event, we decided to create a behind the scenes guided tour of the museum, revealing key areas that are not usually accessible to the public, and which give a real insight into the museums importance and unique sense of place. We are focusing on our costume & photograph collection, our new library and Archive room, and our workshops and stores.

Victorian dress from Ryedale Folk Museum collection

At the museum we believe that objects hold stories, and that those stories are what make the objects evocative, and allow people to engage with them.

One personal example comes to mind: we have a tractor within our collection, which never meant a great deal to me, until one day our Director told me a story about it. When that tractor was still in use, they used to call it a courting tractor; it was used to take dates to the village barn dances. This brought the tractor to life for me, and now every time I see it I imagine that story, and the romance and the fun times that it represents.

I want our visitors to experience that feeling of connection to the past when they visit us. Through showing them the way we began and continue to work with our volunteers, I hope the event will show them that special sense of place we believe we represent, and really connect our audience with the museum.

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Emma McKenzie has worked at Ryedale Folk Museum for just over 2 years as a Development Officer & Events Co-ordinator. She has a first class honours degree in Entertainment Design Crafts specialising in the design and construction of costumes. She began working at the museum as a volunteer, drawing the costume collection for the catalogue cards.

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Thanks, Emma!

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.

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.