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.
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