THE BRIGHT FUTURE FOR MUSEUM LATES


by Nick Stockton


Art appreciation after-dark is an increasingly common phenomena, with collaborative museum night events in cities all over the world attracting hundreds of thousands of people. How? Moscow is a particularly instructive example, the city’s policymakers and pro- grammers have embraced the concept of late opening to the extent where it is normal to visit museums, galleries and libraries till 10pm in the evening. In this environment their three annual showpiece nights: Museum, Art and Library Nights thrive. The visitors expect their cultural services to be open at convenient times so when there is a fabulous big annual moment they are ready and eager to take part. Mexico City’s monthly festival Noche De Museos is an example of possibly the most prolific Lates program- ming in the world: 40 to 50 venues coming together every month for a night of Lates organised by the city council. Ana Rita Garcia-Lascurain Director of Mexico City’s Chocolate Museum explained: “Having the obligation of doing something every last Wednesday of the month has been very motivational.” Amsterdam’s annual MusuemNacht is a trail-blazing event and organisation. Run by young people for young people, the four paid employees are required to be under 30 and be in post no longer than three years. The event sells-out its 33,000 tickets every year in just five weeks to Amsterdam postcode residents only. Travel and tourism disruptors like Airbnb are bringing more people to stay into city centres, many driven to new places by attractive cultural offers. Suddenly a whole new generation of visitors are available to museums, less encumbered by past prejudices. In London, a new festival of museum night events (Lates) will take place on midsummer’s weekend in June 2019. The aim of the festival is precisely to spearhead ‘A Culture of Lates’–a commitment by policymakers and museum leaders to invest in Lates as the industry’s contribution to the UK’s night-time economy (NTE). The concept, of a Culture of Lates, was first proposed in February 2018 when three-linked research reports were published by Culture24, sup- ported by Arts Council England, the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and Airbnb, examining for the first time the role that Lates play in the NTE, both in the UK and Internationally (including case studies from Sydney, Melbourne, and the aforementioned Moscow and Mexico City) and the potential impact of cultural tourism. The research evidence and findings point to healthy prospects for the growth of Lates in the UK, building on cross-territory knowledge sharing and can be seen as a roadmap for future development. The reports outlined the opportunity to create a Culture of Lates in the UK by developing Lates into a significant contribu- tor to a diverse and harmonious night-time economy


offering a high quality product that generates income for museums and galleries. Also, by exploiting growing demand for an offer that combines creative content with food and beverage under one roof and combining regular programming with big festival moments to build event capacity The new London Lates festival exemplifies how Culture24 supports the sector to exploit these opportu- nities. The festival will offer customers a high-quality, unique offer, simple to understand and attractive to identify with. Venues will reach new people, earn rev- enue and work together, synthesising the opportunities the research identified into market-ready practice. This new model for a UK museum festival can be applied to any town or city with a handful of non-performing arts venues in close proximity to each other: Amster- dam and Budapest’s versions are approaching their third decades of successful life. Responses to pubic surveys indicate customers want Lates events to include music, artists, talks plus food and drink. Event listings data shows this is exactly the offer museums are increasingly providing proving that venues are alive to demand. Experiences are made more memorable by participation–the act of doing leaves a lasting impression on the psyche. Museums can be supportive spaces for adults to lose their inhibitions around playfulness and many have great relationships with the ‘spirit guides’ of participa- tion – artists. The London-based artist Tine Bech, for example, devised a participatory treasure-hunt type inter- vention, called Rainbow Makers, and activated it at the Manchester Whitworth Art Gallery in 2016. Participant groups, (the Rainbow Makers) wore ‘Light Vests’ adorned with switchable coloured LEDs and were given seven iconic art pieces to find, each designated with a colour of the rainbow and ‘guarded’ by ‘Gatekeepers’. Once the groups found the artworks the Gatekeepers changed the teams’ vest colours, with hand-held remotes, and took photos that were uploaded to a giant screen in the venue’s hub space. The teams completed the seven stage quest, returned to the hub to see their photos contribute to the devel- opment of a giant on-screen rainbow and to collect a print out of their favourite Rainbow Maker image. The event sold out mainly to the Whitworth’s local catchment of diverse young people. The game gave people permission to play with friends, family and strangers, introduced people to artworks in an in- teractive way and was great fun. Magic, it seems, is conjured in museums at night.


Nick Stockton is a freelance journalist specialising in science, transportation and infrastructure and is a regular contributor to Wired Magazine.


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