Museums at Night 2014: a roundup of BBC coverage of the festival

We were delighted to work with the BBC to raise awareness of the Museums at Night festival this year: here’s a brief roundup of the coverage that went out on on BBC1, BBC2, Radio 2, Radio 3, Radio 4, local radio and television and BBC ARTS Online.

Network Television

At the heart of the BBC’s coverage was an hour long BBC2 show, Museums at Night, on Saturday 17 May at 7pm.

 

The programme was a truly nationwide event, presented by Will Gompertz with Mat Fraser at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

There were also short films presented by Frank Cotterell Boyce, Andrew Graham-Dixon and Simon Armitage from Liverpool, Cardiff, Nottingham, Cornwall, Yorkshire and the National Gallery in London.

The on-site panel in Edinburgh included Jude Kelly, Bettany Hughes and Amit Sood from the Google Art Project.

Also on television,

• Museum at Night was profiled on Breakfast where Culture24 CEO Jane Finnis joined hosts Charlie Stayt and Sally Nugent and enjoyed the VanGoYourself game, taking ‘selfies’ imitating famous art works

BBC Breakfast presenters Charlie and Sally recreate Two Women from Naples by Guillaume Bodinier. Image shared under a CC-BY-SA licence

• The One Show promoted the programme off the back of an item with Arthur Smith at the Black Country Living Museum on Wednesday 14^th May
• Blue Peter did a piece with Museums at Night author Damian Dibben from the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich on 15^th May

Radio

• On Radio 2 Chris Evans had Will Gompertz on the show to promote the festival, and Claudia Winkleman’s Arts Show ran a package with Andrew Graham-Dixon from the National Gallery

• On Radio 3 The Verb commissioned writer Phil Smith to do a night time walk
• On Radio 4 You and Yours
• On BBC 6 Music, Lauren Laverne interviewed artist Fred Deakin about his event at The Wilson, Cheltenham

• On BBC Radio Scotland, MacAuley and Co interviewed Will Gompertz
• BBC Radio Wales Arts Show had an interview with Connect10 artist Janette Parris about her project at Cardiff Story Museum
• There was also a significant amount of local radio coverage, including interviews with many participating museums and representatives from Culture24.

 

Nations and Regions

More than seven TV regions covered the weekend, either live or as a package on the Thursday or Friday 18.30 news.

Events at the Horniman Museum in London, the Wilson in Cheltenham, the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Plymouth, Exeter Art Gallery, and one Sunderland museum sleepover were featured. News teams from Manchester, Southampton, Leeds and Hull also covered the event.

BBC Northern Ireland’s Arts Show produced a feature from the Titanic Museum, Belfast.

Each transmission also referred to the BBC2 show.

Online

The newly launched BBC Arts Online focused on Museums at Night over the weekend.

Martha Kearney picked up from Will Gompertz, continuing the broadcasting at 8pm after the BBC2 show. There was a complete live stream of Russell Maliphant’s ‘Second Breath’ with English National Ballet at the Imperial War Museum North.

The website also featured the ‘VanGoYourself’ project which encourages people to take a photograph of themselves as they restage well-known paintings. The Last Supper was re-staged with a group of dinner ladies in a Glasgow primary school.

Clips from the online coverage, including English National Ballet and Public Service Broadcasting, can still be seen on the BBC Arts Museums at Night page.

Museums at Night coverage this weekend

Museums at Night 2014 is here!

All the event listings and lots of features about the festival are on our homepage, www.museumsatnight.org.uk.

There’s a phenomenal amount of media coverage of the festival planned: yesterday comedian Arthur Smith reported from the Black Country Living Museum for the One Show, and this evening author Damian Dibben appeared on Blue Peter discussing his Museums at Night event at Guildford Castle.

On Saturday morning Culture24’s CEO Jane Finnis will be sharing our new art-selfie game VanGoYourself on the BBC Breakfast Show!

Idyll by Lawrence Koe, VanGo’d by Maria and Kelly (image shared under a CC BY SA licence)

We’re all over local and regional radio and television – and Connect10 artist Fred Deakin had a great chat with Lauren Laverne on her 6Music show ahead of his Scribble Jam at the Wilson:

However, the big show that we’re most excited about is this:

BBC’s Arts Editor Will Gompertz will present an hour-long programme about Museums at Night from the National Museum of Scotland on Saturday 17 May, 7pm on BBC Two featuring festival venues across the UK, from the National Gallery to the Museum of Witchcraft.

Watch the trailer here.

BBC Arts Online is also be following Museums at Night at www.bbc.co.uk/arts, culminating in a ballet live stream from Imperial War Museum North beginning at 6.30pm on May 17th.

We hope to see you at an event – do share your photos with the hashtag #MatN2014!

Press Release: Museums at Night 2014 kicks off major new BBC Arts strand

Culture24 are proud to announce that Museums at Night, the UK’S annual night-time festival of arts, heritage and culture, is to be the opening subject of the new topical arts strand, BBC ARTS at…

Coverage of the Museums at Night festival, which takes place over the weekend of Thursday May 15 – Saturday May 17, 2014, will be broadcast from museums and galleries across England, Wales, and Scotland with BBC Arts Editor Will Gompertz presenting an hour-long programme on BBC Two.

BBC Arts Online will host exclusive coverage including a live stream of key events featuring leading contemporary artists at venues across the country, along with highlights from the BBC archive. There will be coverage of the event on the Chris Evans Breakfast Show (BBC Radio 2) and The Verb (BBC Radio 3) as well as regional and local news across the BBC.

Launching in May, BBC ARTS at will give audiences a front row seat at cultural events across the year – exhibitions, performances, festivals – showcasing the energy and excitement of Britain’s vast cultural landscape when and where it happens. This ambitious new strand will, for the first time, bring TV, radio and online together under a single banner, BBC ARTS at…

Visitors at an installation by artist Alex Hartley, who will appear at Market Hall Museum in Warwick for Museums at Night 2014

Jane Finnis, CEO, Culture24 says, “On behalf of the hundreds of museums, galleries and heritage venues that take part in Museums at Night, Culture24 are absolutely delighted that the BBC are using this unique festival to launch its new topical arts strand. The coordinated cross-platform coverage will significantly raise the profile of the festival, giving millions of people the chance to get involved and highlighting the amazing work going on inside our arts and heritage institutions – above all emphasizing the importance of Museums at Night as the UK’s annual festival of culture.”

Visitors discovering the telescopes at Armagh Planetarium after hours (c) Armagh Planetarium

The Museums at Night festival offers the chance to experience culture and heritage in a totally unexpected way. Over three nights in May, hundreds of museums, galleries and historic spaces all over the UK will open up late and putting on a dazzling array of special night-time events: from unique literary talks in castles to star gazing in historic houses; sleepovers in palaces to city-wide culture crawls; bands playing in amongst museum exhibits to science fiction life drawing in galleries.

Now in its sixth year, the Museums at Night festival ties in with the European initiative La Nuit des Musees. It is run by non-profit cultural publisher Culture24 and designed to attract new audiences into museums and galleries, via a whole range of exciting experiences and events.

Museums at Night is funded by Arts Council England.

For further information and images please contact: Pandora George, Bullet PR, pandora@bulletpr.co.uk or tel: 01273 775520 or 07729 469220

Urgent Museums at Night PR opportunity: want extra publicity?

URGENT: An extra, last-minute opportunity has come up for one lucky Museums at Night venue to get some major publicity tonight: but the conditions, (as always) aren’t easy to fulfil.

IF you’re a regional (non-London) venue that’s putting on a Museums at Night event tonight

AND you’ll be open to the public between 10pm and 10:30pm tonight

AND a BBC radio crew are already covering your event

please call PR wunderkind Pandora George right now on 07729 469220!

Museums at Night – coming soon to TV and radio near you!

Just a quick heads-up about some of the upcoming publicity for Museums at Night that our fantastic PR guru, Pandora George of Bullet PR, has managed to drum up.

Nick recorded a brief interview with Radio 4 this afternoon, and another for Radio Cornwall which will go out at 11pm tonight. I was taken off-guard tonight and ended up recording another for Radio 5 Live, which will go out at around 5AM as part of the Friday morning breakfast show. Nick will be interviewed again for Radio London at 7:25 tomorrow, and will be talking with Ken Livingstone on his Saturday afternoon show.

I’ve already recorded one extended chat with Radio Reverb, the Brighton station, about all the events taking place in Sussex (and my love of Motorhead). And tomorrow afternoon I’ll be in conversation with Radio Devon, along with Dee Martin from Torre Abbey who will be discussing their Live Action Cluedo event!

If anybody else would like to interview us, please contact our PR goddess Pandora on 07729 469220 or email pandora@bulletpr.co.uk. We are both very chatty and would be delighted to discuss any aspect of the campaign! Meanwhile, if you have the chance to be interviewed, that’s great – all we ask is that you try to mention the address of the Museums at Night website, www.museumsatnight.org.uk,

Tomorrow is a big day: I’ll be manning the @Culture24 twitter account and livetweeting along with the ITV Daybreak programme tomorrow morning. The Museums at Night venue the crew will be reporting live from is Explosion! The Museum of Naval Firepower in Gosport. We’re expecting this feature to start at around 7:15 in the morning – so if you’re awake at this shockingly early hour, please do tune in to support the Explosion staff!

Urgent call: Museums at Night venues, who wants a TV camera crew?

A very special last-minute opportunity has come up for one Museums at Night venue to appear on TV! Please read on and make sure that your venue is able to meet all the TV crew’s requirements before expressing your interest.

ITV’s Daybreak, the breakfast television programme with Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley, are looking for a an exciting and atmospheric museum in England to feature live on air this Friday morning for a special Museums at Night item they are planning.

The idea is to film children having fun in a museum, interacting with exhibits, maybe doing an event that reflects your own Museums at Night event, and then snuggling down in sleeping bags for a sleepover.  It doesn’t matter if your museum isn’t actually putting on a sleepover for your official Museums at Night event – the programme would make it clear that the sleepover recreation is just for the sake of Daybreak only.

Filming would be required late Thursday evening from 8pm til 10pm – and they would then need access from 5.30am – 8.30am on Friday morning.

Daybreak would like to film at a museum with large, visually exciting and
accessible exhibits, so that they can record children interacting with them. They will also need the museum to supply 20 children to participate in the filming – so you will need to have links with local schools or groups.

It would be a bonus, but not essential, if your venue looks classically Gothic, as seen in the Night at the Museum films.

This is a fantastic opportunity for you to promote your museum in a positive light to Daybreak’s morning audience of up to a million and a half viewers, and be part of the Museums at Night PR campaign!

If you can fulfil all of these requirements, please call PR coordinator Pandora George on 07729 469220 by 12 noon tomorrow, Wednesday 11th May.