10 steps to your first museum Lates

How do you plan a good museum event? And crucially- how do you get people to show up for one? A few years ago, museum Lates were a big talking point. What were all those young people doing hanging out in museums?! These days, London museums holding hip and well attended evening events is just standard, with big hitter institutions competing for a culture vulture crowd. So how do you wade into these competitive market of Lates events? We recently gave it a shot and came out shell shocked but wiser…
 

No I don't work at the V&A, but let's face it- this is what you thought of when I said Lates.

You are probably used to hearing about the Ministry doing the attending of events, not the organizing. The blog tends to be pretty collections focused – a reflection of our professional roles. So, a caveat then – this is a bit of a first time. There are plenty of people who are 100% dedicated to engagement and public programming who plan fantastic events regularly. But for those of us who work at smaller institutions where its all hands on deck, its not as easy as separating staff into their specialties. Even at larger museums, you might be expected to give ideas for public events associated with your work. So, with the understanding that we are not pro-organisers, here are 10 things we learned recently from a first attempt at conceiving and executing a museum lates event *(which may be totally wrong and please do leave corrections and advice in the comments!)

1. Have an idea that fits your museum – Sounds simple right?

 With the V&A throwing their awesome monthly art parties, its not good enough to simply open your galleries later. Nor is it really enough to have a talk. Lots of museums hold lectures all the time – and unless you are having in someone super famous, it’s unlikely to be a big draw. So think about what your can do that other people can’t – what themes make your museum unique? Or is there something in the news/culture that could be particularly relevant or interesting for your organization? Have a hook that relates to your museum as a starting point, rather than something general which could be done anywhere.

Images from a recent Lates event at the Royal College of Physicians featuring multisensory installations by AAVM Curiosities. 

2.    Connect with the seasons 
     So it's October- you’ll have already been seeing loads of Halloween events for the past few weeks. Soon we will be turning to Christmas. It’s difficult to fight the flow of traffic as it were. If there’s a seasonal holiday and you aren’t ‘on theme’ as it were, your event is likely to get lost from all the ‘top 10 festive things to do’ lists and therefore from people’s attention. This isn’t always the case depending on the time of year, but be aware of what’s going on generally in the city and try and draw on it. Keeping in mind tip one above.

3. Include an interesting activity

The reason why Lates events are so popular with millennials is that younger audiences are interested in having unique experiences. People want to do do something with their friends that’s memorable and instagrammable. The big museum lates are always packed with artistic workshops where you can take home your handiwork, silent discos, photobooths, dance performances etc. The evening should offer a unique activity as a ‘pull’ alongside exhibitions, talks or whatever else you have on.

Fun people do fun things like the ever popular silent disco at the Science and Media Museum.

4. Drinks, drinks, drinks
      Yes it seems obvious, but there must be a bar and, ideally, cocktails! At the event I organized recently, I’m fairly sure the historical cocktail we were offering as a part of the ticket price was one of the main reasons people came. A combination of post-work revelry and the unique experience angle. Why not ( just be sure to offer soft drinks as well!)

Why yes I did hear about this event on facebook...

5.  Pick a date!
      So you’ve got your idea, great. It’s season and relevant? Perfect. Includes an interesting activity? Great. And there will be booze? Nice. So, it’s time to pick a date. I mean literally a day of the week. I got so much conflicting advice about this when I was planning. Some people say Mondays and Fridays are right out. But Tuesdays are too early in the week for people to want to come – and so many people do Lates events on Wednesdays and Fridays! Honestly, I’m not sure there is a good answer for this one. Just from personal observation I’d steer clear of Mondays, but really its all fair game. Just be sure you watch out for what the big nationals are doing – you can’t fight a Science Museum Late if you are doing a science themed event, or the V&A for an art themed evening. Even the Horniman pulls a big crowd of museum go-ers – so check rival calendars first before deciding.

Why fight it? Get into the season if you want to make it on a 'must do' list like the Londonist.

      6. Make a Facebook event
      Facebook is the perfect way to share your amazing event creation. It’s free, easy to use and has great links to the city’s museum crowds. Almost all big museum Lates are promoted this way and its easy for people to like and share (plus it reminds them as the date approaches). Can’t go wrong!  

     
     7.  Get some promotional images
      Facebook might be quick and easy to make, but if you want to get serious about pulling people to an event, you’ll want some eye candy too. Promotional images give people a sense of what they’ll be getting on the evening and help to pad out otherwise wordy notices. Images of your galleries with people in, of people enjoying themselves, of people drinks all work well! If you are running an activity with a facilitator they will hopefully be able to provide you with promotional pictures too. Just check the copyright before you go splashing it everywhere. (And on a related note, but sure you have a professional photographer at your event to take pictures for the next one!)

Doesn't this crowd of museum lovers make you want to go to the NHM?

    8. Push it good
    Werk it girl- Whether you are big or small, well-funded or on a shoe string, there are many ways to push your Lates event (and you should be using them all!). If you do have the money to list an event, it's a good idea. If you have a PR person they are probably the best to speak to about this - but the gold standard for Lates in London anyway are Time Out and the Londonist. You of course can never know if you'll be selected, but hopefully your clever, topical idea complete with drinks and activities will catch the eye of an editor! Don't forget about your own social networks though! London museums are a small world and we all need to look out for each other. Promote on twitter, Facebook, annoy your friends, text your relatives- get the word out! And make sure anyone you are working with (speakers, artists, facilitators) do the same. Partnering up with other organisations to put on an event helps here as well. And one tip for when you're there, don't sit back use this as an opportunity to tweet, Instagram and live stream the shit out the event - for those who couldn't make it make sure they see how awesome it is and book onto the next one!

        9.  Invite bloggers
      Obviously museum bloggers are the best! Having bloggers at an event is a great investment in the future. Having people who write about museums for people who love museums is a great way to make it known you are running public programmes, especially as a small museum. Bloggers will be expecting free tickets though, so maybe set some aside.

      10. Check your A/V
      Oh my friends, my last tip and the pointy end of the problem - after all this planning, you've got to actually put on the event! So much to do on the days before and the day itself. Making sure everything is in place, going over catering, setting up furniture etc. Just never ever forget to check your A/V - a broken speaker system, no lighting, no music and squealing microphones can ruin your amazing event in a heartbeat. 

     You've done it! You've organised your first museum event! I hope people come and enjoy it, that you are able to share your museum with new audiences. Organizers very rarely get to have fun at their own events, but try to breath and take it all in. Remember, good or bad, it will be a lesson learned for next time! 
   

Images from a recent Lates event at the Royal College of Physicians featuring multisensory installations by AVM Curiosities. 

Bonus Tip - Plan an accurate budget!! Events don’t come cheap and are full of surprise costs. Listing the event, paying for A/V, speaker fees and travel, furniture hire, room hire, cleaning costs, security costs, catering can all rack up! Add some contingency in your budget and if it’s the first time you are doing it be sure to get lots of estimates before committing to anything. Don’t forget all planning is risky and be prepared for not being able to earn it all back through ticket sales. The goal of museum Lates is audience engagement not profit, so just be sure you have it in the budget or have a realistic idea of what you can pull in sales (and watch out for Eventbrite fees!).

Baffling out millennials in museums

We have been a little behind in our reading at the Ministry, so thankfully a friend of ours brought this topic to our attention. 'Have you read this article on millenials in March's Museums Journal?' she exclaimed. 'It makes it sound like all we want is booze and technology! Don't they know we do all the work?!' Digging out the MJ from our 'to read' pile, we found she was right. 'Late-night events and mobile-friendly content are just two elements need to get right for this group' the tag line reads. Oi. Museums like many other industries, seem to be struggling with how to reach out to younger people. The funny thing is, millennials make up a huge amount of museum staff- so why is this so hard exactly?

First of all, it would be impossible to write a short blog which addresses all of the issues of using the term 'millennial' in the first place. Applied to all 18-35 year olds, the likelihood of the stereotypical description of a millennial matching the personality and preferences of a given individual is about as likely as a horoscope predicting your future. Sure, if you say enough general things, you are likely to get a match. Millennials like evening open hours, millennials like hands-on events, millennials like unique experiences- ok, but who doesn't? 

Our issue is not really with the fact that the Museums Journal has published some (fairly accurate) observations about events that entice young people to museums. As a note, I would say that things like Lates events, artistic interventions, hands-on activities and art classes do not appeal uniquely to people in their 20s, they are (or rather should be) part of a broader movement for active audience engagement in museums (regardless of your year of birth). The point is that museums and museum advocacy organisations talk about 'what millennials like' 'how millennials behave', like we are some bizarre, distant race that must be studied by anthropologists. 

Lates event at the National Museum Scotland

Museums, like many sectors in fact, are interested in millennials because they are generally seen as having disposable income which they like to waste in coffee shops or at clubs. Money you could be getting, right museum management? No, according to a recent study, 1/3 of UK millennials live in poverty, and most are struggling with debt. Little indulgences like a nice coffee or a night out at a Lates event are important to bolstering social lives typically limited by our bank balance. Millennials aren't something to be farmed for cash, but an audience that needs museums as much as any other. 

This is made even more frustrating when you think about what percentage of the museum workforce falls within this age bracket. Hello! We are your front of house team, your documentation specialists, registrars, art handlers, researchers, curators, conservators, interns and on and on. Museums are run on millennial brain power. I'm sure if you looked into the teams who are pioneering Lates events in London they are - you guessed it- millennials. So why do policies, events and programmes aimed at people born in the 1980s and 1990s feel like such a burden for museums.

The answer is because you don't listen to us. You don't need to pay marketing companies to tell you how to get in touch with younger audiences, you need to listen to your younger staff members. Despite the shakeups, the short term contracts, the overhauls in museums of the years of the cuts, there remains a massive divide between museum leadership and the people doing the everyday work. I can just imagine a meeting of Directors, puzzling over the 'millennial' problem, reading reports written for them by their younger staff. If giving decision making powers to your junior staff scares you, that might be the reason why you are struggling to attract younger audiences.

I'd like to just say, from my own experience as a so-called 'millennial' and those of my friends, Londoners in their twenties are (generally) educated, cultured, engaged and enthusiastic. Even those who don't work in museums love coming to events because they love performance art or gaming or music. Not just because we like to get plastered and take selfies (although that is fun). No we don't have a lot of money to spend on events (housing shortage, university loans, being poorly paid in museums) but we still like to enjoy our city. You are very welcome to keep on keeping on with the mobile-friendly content and after hours events, but you should probably have a look within your organisation if you are feeling like you need some insights into programming for young people.

Chanelling our inner steam-punk at Victoriana: The Art of Revival

Here at the Ministry we tend not to write reviews of the events we attend. Why? It seems cruel- because you have already missed out on your chance to be there. But in this case you will just have to suffer through your jealousy, because we are dying to tell you all about the Guildhall Art Gallery’s Neo-Victorian Ball in honour of its current exhibition, Victoriana: The Art of Revival.

The ladies swoon for the Lion of London- or was it because of the corsets?

It was a mild October evening when the Guildhall, that majestic symbol of the City of London’s government since the 15^th century, was descended upon by a motley crew in Victorian garb. The Guildhall’s medieval crypts seemed perfectly suited to the corseted and top-hatted audience. We watched the Lion of London perform feats of amazing strength and gentlemanly courage. The Dead Victorians performed rousing music-hall numbers while live drawing took place by candlelight. I cannot image how many bottles of prosecco and rosewater cocktails were consumed in the evening, but based on my own experience, I think we can safely assume a lot.

Wait, what year is this?!

The atmosphere of frivolity perfectly enhanced the purpose of the evening’s events: to promote the Victoriana exhibition. The displays are centred around four themes which embody some of the things we find so fascinating about the Victorians today: neo-Victorian Identity (like corsets, lace and tattoos), time travel (and the steam-punk movement), cute and curious (the macabre element) and the re-imagined parlour (the home and decorative objects). You are welcomed into the exhibition by a marble bust of the great General Gordon, only adorned with the requisitely complex steam-punk goggles. Next up you’ll find a Victorian taxidermy scene in its wood box, only this display contains a hidden camera to another area of the gallery rather than a taxidermy centre piece. Down the stairs you sweep past a marble statue surrounded by ‘fairies’ or rather bees which swing unnervingly around the artwork.

The exhibition does a fantastic job of incorporating the wide variety of media to explore the ways in which the Victorian era continued to captivate artists today. Sculpture and photography are particularly prevalent, but I particularly enjoyed the incorporation of ink on paper graphics as well as fashion. The art also seemed to incorporate a very lively sense of humour: something you may not necessarily have expected from an exhibition about the Victorians. Despite their staid social morals, artists looking back on this era seem to feel confident being self-referential, transgressive, sexual and even downright funny. Extra points if you can spot the William Morris joke in cartoon, saving the day with perfect symmetry.

It’s of course also worth remembering that the Victorians were not so different to ourselves. We might remember a Queen all in black and a grand vision of empire: but the Victorians were also known for their raunchy songs, music-hall debauchery, business acumen and amazing ability to push beyond the bounds of possibility. It has been widely noted that we are now the New Victorians, and the Art of Revival exhibition serves to highlight all the ways we continue to be fascinated and inspired by the Victorians before us. Also, that adults really really like playing dress-up. 

 Maybe it’s my own inner steam-punk personality, but I can safely say that Victoriana is one of my favourite art exhibitions this year. You may not get to swoon over Leopold or dance the waltz in the crypts, but there’s nothing to stop you from getting your corset and goggles on and heading down to the Guildhall!

As if we needed an excuse to dress up. 

Victoriana: The Art of Revival is on at the Guildhall Art Gallery through the 8^th of December. Also don’t miss out on upcoming events like the Victoriana Film Series at Birkbeck or the Victorian Christmas family event on the 1^st of December.