Hundreds of heritage sites turn nocturnal for Museums at Night festival

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/may/15/museums-at-night-festival-heritage-sites-nocturnal

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There will be haikus on Hadrian’s Wall and a steampunk jewellery workshop in Edinburgh, stargazing amid the ruins of a 12th century abbey in Wales and a swing band in the Roman baths.

As part of the UK’s largest after-hours cultural festival, more than 500 museums, galleries and heritage sites across the country are turning nocturnal this weekend, inviting the public to experience their collections and history after dark.

The Museums at Night festival, now in its seventh year, has gone from just 50 events to 650, all hosted at night and often under the stars. With events taking place at venues ranging from tiny, niche museums in Orkney and Norfolk to national giants such at the Natural History Museum and the V&A, the founding ethos of the festival is to celebrate the diverse and often quirky cultural landscape of Britain and to give a voice and platform to smaller institutions.

Related: Museums at Night 2015 – a weekend of nocturnal activities

“The idea has always been to get institutions to think about doing something different with their venues and different ways to attract audiences they wouldn’t usually reach,” said Nick Stockman, the festival campaign manager. “Over 30% of people who visit a Museums at Night event at their local venue are going there for the first time, which is really what we are in business for: to introduce people to the charms, beauty and benefits of their local museum.”

Last year the event attracted 170,000 visitors and Stockman said he hoped this year that number would exceed 200,000. The festival has been so popular it has now been made biannual for the first time, and will be hosted again in October .

“This kind of event is now more important than ever,” he added. “With the cuts for the arts really biting, and potentially going to worsen, this collective festival is such an important opportunity to showcase what the museum sector is all about and what we can do when we combine and take risks.”

It’s a view echoed by Laura Crossley, who coordinates a cluster of 18 museums and sites across north Norfolk all taking part in the late-night festival . Museums from the Fakenham Museum of Gas and Local History, to Langham Dome – where, during the second world war, soldiers learned to shoot enemy aircraft using a wooden gun and film projections – are all opening their doors after-hours.

“It is brilliant for small venues,” said Crossley. “It is a really good way to garner support for local museums. Some of these places can’t afford to change their displays very much, and are not like national museums who have a regular stream of temporary exhibitions, so there is a danger that people view them as outdated and they rarely get any repeat visitors. Museums at Night gives them a chance to shake off that reputation.”

At a time when museums dedicated to preserving local history were at risk of being seen as outmoded and irrelevant, Crossley said the festival helped themreassert their own importance.

She said: “Small and independent museums have always had to fight for themselves but I do think that the cuts are obviously affecting all museums. Taking part in something like Museums at Night is a way to advocate how great the arts are for local communities and what a special role small museums have in local communities. They tell stories that probably wouldn’t be told anywhere else.”

For Geoff Challinor, who runs the Anson Engine Museum in Cheshire, home to one of the largest collection of engines in Europe, opening the museum in twilight allows it to fully show off its big blow generators in all their fiery glory – particularly attractive to a younger crowd.

“We run on a shoestring and are run by enthusiasm. It is difficult to have a voice when you’re a small organisation like us so this does help us be seen and heard a little bit,” he said.

One of the largest museum clusters taking part in the festival is in and around Newcastle and Gateshead, where on Saturday night buses will be put on to carry the tens of thousands of visitors round 60 different museums, galleries and heritage sites – from Hadrian’s Wall to the Biscuit Factory – offering what one organiser, Bill Griffiths, described as a “late-night cultural tapas”.

“We give equal billing to the events at the tiny venues as the big ones and that equality is at the heart of the late-night events,” said Griffiths. “We had 33,000 visits last year which proves there really is a public appetite for what these small venues have to offer.”