The City Pass, A Good Deal?

Visiting as many museums as I do is an expensive endeavour. That why i’m delighted when a new place I’m going to visit offers a city pass. A one price fits all that lets you visit as many places as you can fit in a day. However the quality of these passes can vary quite drastically. One thing that doesn’t however is the expense.

City passes are universally quite expensive. I could run the numbers properly but assuming a three day pass in a major European city you’re looking at between €40 - €60 per day. Once again eyeballing it means you need to visit something like 3 - 5 different museums to get value from it.

Factor into this that often some of the more high profile (and thus more likely to be visited) places in any given place will either be Free, or not included because they feel they can do without. This means that for an average city visitor making their money back on such a card might be more difficult than they expect. 

Promotional Image for the Amsterdam City Card (Image from Amsterdam2go)

For a museum fiend like myself it’s definitely worth it. As a bit of fun I calculated how much money I saved by purchasing the ‘I amsterdam’ city card and got a figure a little bit over €300 across a five day visit. But that did involve visiting basically every single place covered by the program so I do wonder if others will get as much a deal.

These city cards also often give transport around the city on buses, metros, and even boats. Though I usually take to walking everywhere this can be a big plus as it removes the worry about how to pay for these things or even factoring it in as a potential expense. Bonuses such as city tours, or access to attractions like high points in tall buildings can help sweeten the deal too.

I can’t help but think that most people will possibly end up spending more than they otherwise would through one of these cards, and I would caution anyone to have a serious think about if it’s worth it. However, despite all this I don’t think that they should get cheaper. Primarily because of how they help out smaller museums.

The details of the scheme works of course varies between places but the general idea is that a good portion of the money is put into a pot which is doled out to the attractions on the card based on proportion of visitors. The help here then is in removing a cost barrier to visiting smaller museums. You might pick up the card to visit a couple of biggies but hey you’ve already paid for it and there’s a small esoteric one here so why not!

As an example I’m preparing for a trip to Dublin. For a three day pass It’ll be €124 (€41.33 per day) which is actually a pretty good deal given that the attractions in Dublin are quite expensive compared to many other cities. A reasonable itinerary might be the Guinness Storehouse, EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, Dublin Castle, The Cathedral, Dublin Zoo, and the National Wax Museum. Without the card this would come to a little under €100 and with the use of the buses to get around this would make for a reasonable offer. But now you’ve paid for it then why not pop along to the Museum of Literature Ireland, or the Botanic Gardens?

Image of the Botanic Gardens (Image from Heritage Ireland)

I don’t know how crucial or even useful these cards are as a source of income for these kinds of places. But I imagine that they are generally fairly useful otherwise they wouldn’t continue to take part in the schemes.

So here’s to the city pass, long may it continue. And not just because they save me a small fortune.

Showtown: All Style, No Substance

I was born and raised near Blackpool, so I can tell you with a local’s knowledge that it is a tacky and awful place.

It is however a big tourist town which means attractions. The primary ones being the rollercoaster filled pleasure beach and the famous Blackpool tower but there are some of the ubiquitous staples like Madame Tussauds and Ripley's Believe it or not.

There have also across the years been a few occasional smaller and more interesting museums. Most notably was the Dr Who museum that my young self visited many times.

When I was back visiting my parents told me something new had opened. ‘Showtown’, a museum about the town’s showbusiness history. And a new museum is always enough to make me overcome any disdain I may have for a place.

Seemingly forming a part of the council's earnest yet doomed attempts to reform the town, the museum is a modern and airy space filled with interactive exhibits, archival clips and even themed actors to introduce you to the space.

It looks great, pulling off a loud but clear decorative style with distinct themed zones covering comedy, circus, ballroom dancing and more. Children running around pressing fart noise buttons or playing with Punch and Judy puppets. It gives off a great atmosphere and looks great in photos.

Image of the Inside of Showtown’s Circus Section (Image from Showtown)

As an educational space however, it's all fur coat and no knickers. Whilst not as bad as the Cold War Museum in Berlin, which offered almost no information at all, the panels and displays offer only the scantest of context. Did you know that Tommy Cooper performed in Blackpool? Did you also know he wore a Fez? Well now you do and that's all the display will tell you, but there is a big picture of him and a huge fez you can take a photo with.

Don't get me wrong, Instagramable moments are something I think are vital to modern exhibitions but there still needs to be some actual information available.

By way of an example we can point to the display about the famous Blackpool illuminations. I tasked my parents with what should be a fairly simple task. “what was the first year of the illuminations?” They came back from the display with a couple of possible answers and a confused look.

This confusion is understandable because it's not a totally straightforward answer. The short answer is 1912, but that was effectively just the implementation of fancy street lighting along the promenade (which was a novelty at the time). The modern idea of the tableauxs, shaped lamps and festooned trams only really started in the 1930s. And there was also a proto illuminations hosted in 1879 which was simple a few bright lamps which was enough of a feature at the time and is what inspired the later parade of lights.

Image of the 1912 Princess Parade Lighting (Image from Showtown)

The display however makes basically no distinction between these three very different styles of event with it being unclear if the lights were there between 1897-1912. Indeed the display reads almost exactly like the Wikipedia page which is equally unclear.

“The Blackpool tower ballroom is hugely important to ballroom dancing the world over”, okay but why?. “Did you know that there are three different types of clowns, here are the different kinds of outfits they wear” interesting… But how do the types differ and why? It was the same over and over again, an interesting tid bit about something but then no further explanation.

This puts Showtown to me as definitely an ‘Attraction’. It will entertain for an hour or so  but is ultimately a hollow experience that teaches nothing. Which whilst not invalidating to its existence does make it as disappointing to me as the rest of Blackpool.

The City that Never Was

After I’ve ranted to some poor unsuspecting person about museums for way too long, unless they take the first opportunity to dash away, they often ask me “Okay. If you could make a museum, what would you do?”. Little do they know I have at least a dozen ideas and a pre-prepared PowerPoint presentation for just such an ask.

In all seriousness, it’s not a particularly easy question to answer. As with many things there are so many caveats and constraints that make wild imaginings rather difficult to follow through on. I have worked with a number of museums and collections at various times on a number of projects, and I may speak about some of them in the future. The various ideas I espouse in this blog and lessons learnt from my years of science communication are something that I can and have used to help others try to improve their own spaces (Incidentally my consultancy rates are very reasonable).

However, here I want to instead let my imagination run a little while and talk about what I would do if I had total creative control and a nice big budget in an occasional segment I’ll call ‘My Museums’.

It is important to note that these ideas are not normal museums per se. Inspired by a trip to my favourite museum of all time the Museum of Jurassic Technology (that I will definitely write about sometime) they are more typically museums about museums. Ways of trying to use the design of a space and the very idea of museums to say something.

A History that Never Happened

It’s not an altogether rare framing device for some Fantasy or Sci-Fi book to be a supposed in-world artefact. Be it a character's diary, or a story recorded by some scholar who may occasionally choose to make references. This is I think best typified by something like Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, it reads like a historical monograph complete with footnotes.

However, the particular notion struck me several years ago when I was watching a YouTube video from a channel that I now for the life of me can’t track down. The idea was simple, a 10ish minute video aping the popular style of YouTube history channels recounting some battle, or the rise of a particular historical figure. The only difference was that they were instead talking about Lord of the Ring’s Battle of Helm’s Deep, or the ascension of Warhammer 40k’s God Emperor of Mankind.

‘Coronation of the Warmaster’ based on Warhammer 40K Lore (Image by L J Koh)

The next idea that comes from this is pretty simple. Why not have a museum dedicated to 40K lore? There are already plenty of items made for promotional purposes, or crafted by dedicated fans. Why not put this together as a museum.

The appeal of this is already fairly obvious. There are a number of Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc attractions across the world which bring in plenty of interest. For a while there was even a Doctor Who museum in Blackpool that I went to many times as a child. So there is an interest in these objects, the only difference here is to instead treat it all with a straight face. Bring in a little bit of that theme park magic to say that whilst you are within these walls it is all real. If nothing else the novelty should bring in the press and crowds.

A Museum is a Place with a Purpose

It’s a fun idea, and still something I'd love to see. But to me a museum has a duty to be a place that preserves, educates, and/or informs. So instead I began to wonder what you could do with such an idea, how to make it worthwhile? Eventually I dropped it altogether. 

It was only after my visit to the Museum of Jurassic Technology that I revisited the idea. To me it is a place that forces the question of ‘what is a museum and why?’. What is a museum's purpose? How and why was it constructed? Who’s story does it tell?

And so the idea came back to me. When we visit a museum it tells us a story, about history, or science, or the people and things of a place. Often we absorb this almost entirely uncritically. Whilst you might express scepticism over a new article or maybe even a book if it’s in a museum then it is somehow more sacrosanct. The idea that it is there in physical space somehow imbues it with a certainty which it cannot truly have. Even when many museums constantly talk about how their objects have been reinterpreted and better understood over years of study.

The City That Never Was

The idea then is to fully confront people with this reality. A dupe, a con, a plot twist that people shouldn’t see coming. The story of the city that never was.

Picture an exhibition room. It tells the story of a lesser known city that wasn’t too far from here that was broadly wiped out by a war or a plague or some such and now its only remnants come from a handful of artefacts, how would they know otherwise.

I could say this carved stone come from Ancient Greece, The Vikings, or the Romans and most people wouldn’t be able to disagree (Image from Meigle Museum)

The exhibit itself follows as normal a condition as can be managed. A case on its founding with some pottery sherds and perhaps a belt buckle. A modern bolt of wool to symbolise its biggest export, a painting of some local lord accepting tribute, a quote from some famous author like Chaucer describing the place as they passed through. Finally another display board describing the story of its downfall to some disaster and perhaps a pithy remark to thinking about how fragile our modern world is.

Really the whole exhibit should be made as boringly predictable as it can be. The kind of exhibit that even the least avid museum goer has seen a dozen times over. Perhaps it could even be made to look dated.

Then, beyond that a final room (artfully hidden from the previous ones) where the wall reads something like ‘Baranforth did not exist’ in bright friendly letters. The room then can reveal what some of the objects actually are and discuss places where other museums have bent the truth or straight up lied.

The message is fairly simple. Do not uncritically absorb information just because it is in a museum.

The practicality of keeping this twist however possibly renders the whole idea mute. If you were to advertise the idea of it then it wouldn’t be a twist anymore which rather takes the joy and more importantly the learning out of it. But equally without some kind of advertising how would you get anyone to show up?

Perhaps the best way would be for it to be taken up by some kind of major museum that already has a reputation and a willing audience. Somewhere like the British Museum where any display is going to have a guaranteed crowd. Then rather than some dull town make some oblique reference like ‘The Lost Civilisation of X’ treating something like the European rediscovery of Angkor Wat with the sudden twist revealed at the end. Then you have to simply hope that the press and punters treat it like a movie twist and keep at least something of lid on it for most of the others that might visit.

We Need to Talk About That Animal Crossing Exhibit

 If it wasn’t clear from the blog post I made about the Pokemon Fossil Museum and the one about Museum Games I’m a big fan of Video Games. So the idea of a video game/museum crossover makes me very excited. Thus when I heard about the Animal Crossing crossover event with the UK’s Sealife Centre I knew I was going to have to check it out.

Promotional Image for the Crossover Event (Sealife Centre Website)

Moving between five different Sealife centres across the UK over the course of seven months. I was lucky enough to happen to be in London working at the Royal Society Summer Exhibition when it was on so I was able to go and visit during a day off. Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t quite that. But it managed to simultaneously be a disappointment but also a potentially exciting future for museums.

In case you’re not aware, the Sealife centre is something of an institution. With 11 locations in the UK and 44 in total across the world it provides an absolutely solid aquarium experience with a good variety of fish, some nice theming, and a balanced and fair approach to the content including tackling important issues such as overfishing and climate change.

Zoos and aquariums get something of an easy ride from me but these attractions are solid and for anyone looking for a bit of something to do especially with kids then a Sealife centre is an easy recommendation. The Sealife centres are perhaps a bit too ‘attractionised’ selling photos, having something of a corporate feel, and are very expensive (You can easily be looking at £30+ for an adult ticket) but you could do much worse.

A global brand like Sealife then is a perfect partner for experimentation as whilst they already have a large and relatively reliable audience they’ll always be looking to do something new to draw people in. A high profile collaboration is just such a potential. The choice being Animal Crossing: New Horizons might at first blush seem a little bit off, given that the game was released about five years before the exhibition started. However, Nintendo franchises are somewhat evergreen and with the release being a phenomena (coming as it did as a cosy life simulator on a gentle island, being launched right at the start of the pandemic) it still holds plenty of appeal.

The reason that it was both a slight disappointment and also perhaps the future was that its presence was fairly light touch. Rather than being an exhibition all of its own the event was instead woven through the normal permanent collection. In its sum total the animal crossing portion was a series of themed information boards, a trail guide, stamp rally, a few ‘hidden’ plushies and a photo opportunity with one of the characters. Oh and of course plenty of themed merchandise in the gift shop.

An example of one of the information boards (own picture)

I had perhaps hoped for something more involved, though I don’t really know what. Something on the order of the Pokémon fossil museum maybe? But this was very much not that. However, this design makes it significantly more scalable and cost effective.

I don't want to try and estimate exactly how much money went into this, not least because I'm sure there were some crazy dealings over the rights, but with exception of the mascot suit I can imagine that you could replicate the animal crossing components for just a few thousand pounds. Which puts the idea in the reach of significantly smaller enterprises.

Me Trying to sneak a picture of Isabelle because I’m not paying £15 for one… (Own Picture)

The question then is what is the value of something like this, both to the venue and the public. The obvious answer for the centre is to draw in more paying guests. Whilst I don't have access to any numbers, what I can say is that there certainly seemed to be a significant number of young adults and teenagers (a target demographic for animal crossing) diligently filling in the trail and looking at the boards which would suggest success.

As an educator I would applaud anything that is able to draw in an audience. Again whilst I don't have demographic information based on my own experiences of normal museum attendees I would suggest that the makeup of the visitors was skewed by the promotion which would indicate it was a different audience that came in.

If, however, the trail with its true or false facts, boards of information and a smattering of branding across the place meant people actually left with more knowledge or science capital is a matter I wouldn’t even want to speculate on without data. But I would report that I found such things to be in line with industry standards and just bringing people in might be a success enough on its own.

The experience then was not ground breaking or even particularly significant. However, it could provide a simple and highly repeatable blueprint for other crossovers to be made. This is something that I would highly encourage and look forward to hopefully seeing in the future.

Professor Kettlestring and the Plague of Illusions

It was when I was wandering through the York Christmas markets that I saw an old eye test centre was being done up. "Coming soon, The Puzzling World of Professor Kettlestring" said some signs over the window.

This was very exciting to me, having long since exhausted all of the museums and attractions in the area is was exciting for something new to be opening up. I also love puzzles so it was an interesting prospect. But at the time I couldn’t find a website so what was it? A puzzle shop? An Escape Room? Some kind of immersive puzzle based Professor Layton type thing? Exciting stuff!

You cannot imagine my disappointment then a little while later when The Puzzling World of Professor Kettlestring opened up and turned out to be yet another ‘Illusion Museum’.

Professor Kettlestring the very clearly AI generated man (Image from Puzzling World York)

Illusion Museums

If you have been to any major European city in the last 5 or so years then you can't have failed to come across an ‘Illusion Museum’. 

Despite some searching I haven't managed to track down where and when the phenomenon started or if this is a franchise type thing or just lots of entrepreneurial types jumping on a band wagon. But by now they're everywhere and they're all much the same. 

The scale and budget varies but they all have the same kinds of things. Upside down rooms that make it look like you're on the ceiling if you take an upside down picture, rooms with squiffy lines that mean you can take photos that look bigger or smaller, and halls of mirrors with interesting lights to take more photos in. 

Typical Images from Illusion Museums Across the World (Image from Wikicommons)

Here it is the photos that are key. Don't get me wrong, I think that Instagramable moments are an important tool for any modern museum. But these space are not for learning. The earlier ones had some token exhibit about the people that discovered such and such an illusion but more recent ones don't even bother. 

These are places that are for having a laugh with friends and more importantly taking lots of cool pictures for social media. Twinned with this is a rise in similar ‘Art Exhibitions’ of the likes of Dark Matter and Melt Museum, Art is not my area and I'm not going to dismiss them as ‘not valid art’ but they are clearly designed around people taking pictures and videos to share online. 

This has led to its logical conclusion of places such as The Balloon Museum or Selfie Factory which are explicitly places to take photographs with almost no pretence at all. This is not to say that I don't think these places shouldn't exist. It's clearly something people want and I'm not about to ruin anyone's fun. 

My issue with it is rather that they wear a skin of ‘museum’ as an attempt to legitimise themselves where they are really simple attractions. Similar things can be seen with the rise of ‘Spy Museums’ which are little more than an activity playground with maybe a couple old artifacts as a shroud. 

The shame is that these attention grabbing activities and photographable moments can be used as a great doorway into some real storytelling. During my university days I worked with Peter Thompson (who discovered the Thatcher Effect) on an exhibition that drew people in with many of these same illusions but then used them to talk about the human brain and perception. 

A rather younger me involved in an illusion at the exhibition (Own Photo)

I perhaps shouldn't be so hard on Professor Kettlestring. It's not like it brands itself as a museum. Even in these museum pretenders we can learn something. Their slick marketing and social media virality is enough to support a purely commercial endeavour and they can often manage to create that all important sense of space (even if it's something of a sham version). 

The Hero Item

I was maybe 15? My Mum and sister had some sort of day trip planned so my Dad suggested we could have one of our own to the Royal Armouries in Leeds. A quick google to check opening times and we got into his Van and headed off.

At this point I knew only two things about the museum. Firstly, that it presumably had a lot of weapons and armour in it and secondly that it also contained the rather amazing Horned Helmet of Henry VIII. This was a highly decorative headpiece commissioned for Henry VIII of England by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I to celebrate an alliance in one of those mid-millennium wars that were largely just a good excuse for everyone to have a fight with whomever was aggrieving them at the current moment.

The important part here is that this helmet was at the time (and possibly still is) the symbol of the museum. It was on the front of every leaflet, poster, and web page. Proud columns sit outside the museum with a likeness on it, and they somehow even managed to get it put on the road signs.

Image of the Horned Helmet of Henry VIII including on the Road Sign (Image from Atlas Obscura)

Dutifully then in the museum itself there were lots of signs pointing to where it could be found. Posters proclaiming its beauty and a gift shop selling replicas or varying size, accuracy, and cost.

After wandering around much of the rest of the museum admiring objects made for viciously killing people, those for protecting you from the first category, or decorative versions of both we came to the gallery containing the helmet. There was the case, centre stage with plenty of room for full viewing and inside…

A card, apologising for the fact that the helmet was currently out for cleaning and minor restoration work.

This was emotionally devastating in a way I can’t quite describe. The helmet itself isn’t of any more particular interest than many of the other excellent pieces in the museum. But the fact that it had been built up as this must see object meant that its absence left such a sour taste in my mouth I can still recall it vividly nearly 15 years later.

I could also tell a similar story about the Barcelona Zoo and its albino white gorilla ‘Snowflake’ who was still touted on all the banners, was sold on tea towels and jigsaws in the street. It was only after passing through the ‘Snowflake’ exhibition then later finding the gorilla enclosure at the other end of the zoo where my Dad managed to spot the relatively tiny plaque at the back informing us that they had actually died several years earlier.


What is a Hero Item?
The term ‘hero item’ comes variously from marketing, shopping designers, and video games. I haven't managed to quite track down its origins to a satisfactory degree. In essence however it is the start of the show for any exhibition or museum. The idea is used extensively, if not necessarily under the same name.

In marketing/shopping it is the item everyone wants to come to you to buy. In video games it can be some kind of chase object. Something people will work towards (or perhaps be willing to pay for). The idea in both cases being the same, you are led to desire it, and once you get it there is a huge amount of satisfaction.

For museums this can work in two main ways, the first is fairly natural with famous objects. This could be famed paintings like The Girl with a Pearl Earring or artefacts of particular note such as the Terracotta Warriors. These are things that people already know about either through films and television or otherwise a general cultural osmosis. People will flock to see these things.

More usefully however it is possible to create your own hero items, not everyone having access to world famous artworks and relics. And this is typically done through a mixture of marketing and storytelling. We can take an example from the British Museum’s Late 2024/Early 2025 exhibition on Hew Locke’s Work

Screenshot from ‘Hew Locke, What have we Here?’ Main Page on the British Museum Website

Immediately then we can see our hero item. A marble bust of Queen Victoria surrounded by a striking and very non-British golden headdress that prominently features skulls. It’s attention grabbing, beautiful, intriguing, and perfect for the centrepiece of an exhibition.

Throw out a few posters featuring it prominently, put it on the front of the exhibit pamphlets and maybe get a banner or two up and you have yourself a hero item that people want to see.


Using Hero Items

This is all very well and good, and doing something like this is fairly standard practice even if the used name is different. But why am I talking about this and how can you take advantage of the idea?

Well first of all I think formalising and standardising concepts is generally a good idea because it helps people to be able to discuss and work on things. But more than that I think this is an idea that is used by the big players but is under utilised by small-mid sized museums.

Finding that one artefact (or small handful or artefacts) that can really grab people’s interest is crucial not only as a way to draw people into a museum but can also provide a useful focal point of a museum visit itself.

I believe that regardless of the museum or exhibition a hero item or two should be identifiable and then can be leveraged to push interest. It doesn’t necessarily have to be splashed centrefold across magazines or to come to symbolise the museum itself (though If you can manage it that helps) but being able to encapsulate a museums themes and ideas in a single item is a useful exercise and also offers something more tangible for the public to grasp onto when they’re thinking about your museum.

As a focal point they can of course be used to sell mugs, t-shirts, posters, and replicas but they can also fit in as part of the design. A big payoff that the rest of your museum is working towards. A key part of the story you are telling, be it a turning point or a symbol of the pinnacle. In short, considering a hero item is a way of identifying the fallback answer to the perennial question “what was the best thing you saw?”

Find that thing, make a song and dance about it, and you’ll help people build better expectations about your museum that you can easily meet and raise their enjoyment.

Just warn people if it’s going to be out for cleaning…

We Need to Talk About the Pokémon Fossil Museum

If you haven't heard about it then you’re missing out. First displayed in 2021 in the Mikasa City Museum and since having travelled around a bunch of other places in Japan. Fortunately for those of us who can’t justify taking a trip to Japan just for a really cool museum you can take a virtual tour around the exhibit here.

If you’ve somehow managed to never come across literally the world's biggest media franchise Pokémon is about the now over 1000 different creatures that are largely based on real world animals (think electric mouse, or turtle but with jet cannons on its back). A subset of these are based on dinosaurs and other now extinct forms of life.

In one of those genius moves that is really obvious once somebody has thought of it, the Mikasa City Museum teamed up with the Pokémon company to produce an exhibition that included models of both Pokémon and the real life creatures they are based on.

Poster for the original exhibition showing a variety of Pokémon [Left] and the real creatures they’re based on [Right] (Image from Pokemon Fossil Museum)

The appeal and use of this is immediately obvious. Draw in a broad range of children who are excited to see the Pokémon they love from the games whilst slipping in an education about real life dinosaurs drawing on their enthusiasm. And perhaps whilst they’re at it selling a ludicrous amount of merchandise.

To me this is a near perfect setup for something like this. Much of my work in science communication is focused on reaching audiences that wouldn’t typically engage with things like museums. And bringing them in with something they love like Pokémon is definitely a great way to do this.

A Theme Park Not A Museum

When the exhibition hit the various online news sites I saw a number of people scoffing at such an idea. That a serious museum would use a children’s cartoon, and such a highly commercial one at that, to talk about a scientific topic seemed to them ludicrous. One comment I saw stuck with me ‘this makes it more of a theme park than a museum’.

To this I have only one thing to say… Yes! Absolutely!

I love museums (that much should be obvious) and I love the old creaking cases with their obscure labels and their vestiges of late Victorian sensibilities. But I also recognise that it is quite an intimidating environment. And if we want to reach the broadest possible audience then we need to adapt the spaces and content.

Model Skeletons of a Tyrantrum [Left] and T-Rex [Right] (Image from Screenrant)

We’ve seen much of this happen with the development of things like Children’s Museums, Science discovery centres, and Pop-Up Museums but I think there’s a lot of elements we could continue to bring in to boost wider engagement whilst still being able to offer some of the same outcomes.

Now I'm not suggesting that every museum turn into something like a day out at the Blackpool Pleasure Beach but the fact that despite the fact it’s in Blackpool (I grew up near there, I know how bad it is) it sees over five million visitors each year is something we can learn from.

I’m a big fan of theming, dressing a space to give it some atmosphere. Or including something a bit more out there in order to bring people in. Museums have been using Flight simulators for decades, and VR experiences for the last few years for exactly this purpose.

Don’t be Afraid to Get Corporate

I’d like to say that I have a bigger point to this, but I don’t really. I just think that a Pokémon themed museum is really cool. I would want to go, I’m sure lots of children who wouldn’t normally want to go to a museum would want to go to this one. And I think it’s an idea that we could replicate elsewhere in other ways.

Model and Shell of a Nautilus [Left] and Model of Omastar [Right] (Image from Pokemon Museum Tour)

One barrier to this seems to be that it’s a bit crass and corporate. But to this I have two main responses. In an industry where exhibitions can regularly be sponsored by banks and other financial institutions with shady records, arms companies, and there remain a number of ‘Sackler’ galleries then involving a bit of popular culture and media license sponsorship is really of only minor consequence. Secondly, the videogame Fortnite has become one of the single biggest entertainment properties in the entire world (much to the consternation of every mildly confused parent and grandparent) thanks largely to its myriad cross collaborations with popular franchises.

Whilst I don’t think this should be every museum, or even the norm. I think there’s a lot of space for the National Emergency Services Museum to run a Paw Patrol exhibit, for there to be a Naruto themed Japanese History Exhibition, or even for some aquarium to run a Spongebob Squarepants gallery. (On which note I'm desperate to try and get to the Animal Crossing Sea Life Centre exhibit, but I'm not sure I'll manage it)