To be surprised at adults not knowing most museums are free?

[FelineFatale]

I've met recently at least four people who didn't know this. One said they didn't take their children to museums because they can't afford it and the other three just thought you had to pay.

I'm close to two of these people and when I said I was amazed they didn't know this they stated most people think you have to pay for museums.

They don't, surely?!

Its at Tring

It's not "The North" though is it?

Wow, I'd never heard of it. Wonderful to see such treasures being available so far out of London...

@Uptheapplesandpears the only issue with that is storage of material is very different from when it's exhibited. It won't be in cases displayed specially with labels etc, they'll be in boxes, drawers, packaged etc in full storage areas where it isn't easy to just pull something out, and without the content management system to hand may be hard to explain what items are without other context. Although sites sometimes do behind the scenes tours it's more about process than objects if that makes sense?

I wonder how much it would need to charge in order to be viable? Eureka for example is £13 for anyone over 3, I think they do family tickets too.

The world mueseum in liverpool has a picnic room. Its a lovely muesuem toddler ds insisted we went four times in one week once for the dinosaurs. Thankfully it's free entry, only payment was the teracotta army exhibition recently which is obviously optional if you see it or not.

They've more than one picnic space in the LWM I think. There's also an indoor and outdoor picnic area at the Manchester Museum and lots of outside eating space at MOSI. But you have to know it's there.

I know there are free ones, they are in the nearest big city to where I live. That means we need to take a train which only runs once and hour and is a 40 minute walk from our house, then travel for 30 minutes, then walk around 20-30 minutes at the other end to reach the museum. Or we can drive in but there is no free parking near by and it costs quite a bit in petrol. Then we need the donation and lunch, or we can take a packed lunch but that's just extra prep before we go. Plus DS is only 2 and would much rather run around a park or field than wander round a museum.

And there is always the risk that some emotional people may scream at particularly beautiful exhibits

And there is always the risk that some emotional people may scream at particularly beautiful exhibits

Frankly if you're not the sort of person who would scream with emotion at an exhibit, then i'm not sure such places are for you. You might be better off playing in the park with your son.

The world museum in Liverpool is fantastic. It has a bit of a zoo, it has a planetarium. We once went on a fabulous behind the scenes tour there that had the kids talking about it for months afterwards.

Best of all it’s always absolutely full of normal, down to earth, enthusiastic families, genuinely enjoying a great day out, (as opposed to the Manchester museums which seem to be full of middle class performance parenters dragging their kids around).

There are free picnic places in Eureka (Halifax), the Weston Park Museum (Sheffield), The National Coal Mining Museum (Wakefield) and the National Railway Museum (York) that I can think of. Those are just the museums I tend to go to quite often.

And there is always the risk that some emotional people may scream at particularly beautiful exhibits

Or getting some form of therapy for that screaming?

Who (over the age of six) screams in museums?

I find it very hard to grasp the idea of not liking museums- any museum. You're basically saying that neither you or your family is the slightest bit interested in any history, art or science. I don't understand that.

Actually @joyfullittlehippo you can take the public into most storage facilities - I used to do it! Most archives don't require extremely sensitive climate control (obviously the ones that do are a no-go), just a place which has a reasonably constant temperature and humidity. So making sure the door shuts behind you is about the extent of what you need to do.

I have been to the facilities for the Mary Rose as well, and there was one more sensitive room which we could only spend 5 minutes in, but we could go in and have a look :)

It's true that most of what you'll see are boxes and boxes and not much else, but when we did stores tours we got out some of the more interesting and robust items ahead of time so they could be viewed.

I didn't mean opening a storage facility up, I meant opening another museum to showcase some of the unshown stuff on a commercial basis. I don't know whether that would work or not, I'm saying it's potentially something I would like to have the opportunity to pay to enjoy. Not if it's going to cost like a grand per visit obv, but if it were in the region of the costs of going to maybe an aquarium or zoo, then yes. If that isn't a viable business model then it isn't, but I'd be interested to know what it might cost and whether it's ever been looked into.

The museum by me isn't free, I don't think many small /town museums are, but when we travel 2hrs+ away the national museums are free (some are pay for parking) so I guess its not an ignorance thing it just depends on where you live?

Who (over the age of six) screams in museums?

You'd be surprised

www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/free-museums-and-art-galleries/

Shit loads of them.

Me and my two year old go to various ones once a month.

Many of them have special sessions (also sometimes free) for little ones too. What's not to like?

Shit loads of them

That depends on your area, the Northern Ireland section has 3 listed. That's hardly shit loads of options.

Most museums are not free. Your friends are right.

@Lockheart it'll depend on the requirements for the room but either way I'd never encourage regular interruption of the room, our storage areas are relatively lenient aiming for 15-20 degrees 50% RH and even with that I wouldn't allow regular tours, it doesn't take much to disturb the balance and then make the air conditioning units go into over drive then making it an environmental sustainability issue. Especially as parts of the sector are edging towards passive environmentally controlled rooms it means we have to be ever mindful of sustaining a stable environment. I think our biggest issue though would be not having the staffing resource unfortunately.

@Uptheapplesandpears that would be amazing, I'm sure there is so much more that could be done with the amazing collections we have in this country, unfortunately funding is dire at the moment.