24-hour Museum, a new landmark of urban nightlife
2022-07-19
When night falls and lights are on, in addition to cinemas, bars, KTVs and other lively entertainment and consumption places, can tired urban people find a quiet place to relax and fully enjoy cultural nourishment? A museum that opens at night may be a good choice. Unfortunately, although museums across the country have also tried to delay the opening of museums in recent years, holding activities such as night tours and overnight stays in museums, museums that normalize "night business" are still scarce. In Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, more than 20000 visitors have come to experience the "24-hour Museum of Zhejiang nature museum" since its trial operation for more than a month. After entering the summer vacation, the number continues to rise. The venue is a 300 square meter small cultural space built by Zhejiang nature museum. Its business hours are from 10 a.m. to 24 midnight from Monday to Friday, and it is open 24 hours a day on Saturdays and Sundays. This great leap forward is the first in state-owned museums. Taking this as a signal, can we expect that "latecomers" may emerge in endlessly, making the museum one of the main venues of urban nightlife? 1. The demand of the audience leads the museum to keep trying Recently, the continuous report of Changjiang Daily on a "citizen's suggestion" has become a good talk: in late June, Mr. Minkang of Wuhan made suggestions on the Wuhan City message board. Since the beginning of summer, more and more people have visited the Hankou river beach at night. He hopes that the museum crossing the Yangtze River next to the Yuehan wharf can be opened at night, adding cultural atmosphere to the night tour of the river beach. On July 6, Wuhan jiangtan Office responded to this suggestion and announced that the opening hours of the Yangtze River Crossing museum would be adjusted from 12:30 to 20:30 every Friday and Saturday from July 8 to August 31. It is reported that on July 8, when the night tour was opened, the total passenger flow of the museum was 316. Among them, the passenger flow after 16:30 (the previous closing time) was 146, which more than doubled compared with the previous data in the same period. Also popular is the 24-hour Museum of Zhejiang Nature Museum, which is located in the center of Hangzhou and has convenient transportation. "In the past, we often received calls from tourists. During the day, we were busy visiting the West Lake and enjoying the beautiful scenery. In the evening, we wanted to take our children to visit museums. However, most museums are open from 9 to 5, which is difficult to meet everyone's needs for cultural life." Yan Hongming, President of the Zhejiang Nature Museum, said that the idea of opening a "night museum" had been in place as early as 2014. It happened that the museum recently recovered a 310 square meter facade along the street, which was suitable for building into a separate new cultural space, and began the preparation of the 24-hour Museum. On the first day of trial operation, the 24-hour Museum of Zhejiang nature museum received more than 700 tourists within 9 hours from 15:00 to 24:00. According to the staff, since it coincides with the summer vacation, almost every day from 10:30 to 21:30 is the peak period. In order to ensure the quality of the exhibition, the venue had to limit the flow of 100 people per hour, and many spectators queued outside the door. In order to "stagger the peak", some viewers choose to go early in the morning or before twoorthree in the morning on weekends. A citizen left a message after the exhibition: "after the opening of the 24-hour Museum, we have another place to visit, which can not only cool down, but also learn a lot of interesting natural knowledge." Entering the summer vacation, the 24-hour Museum of Zhejiang nature museum is "hard to get a ticket". According to the weekly report data, 940 people were received in the museum every day from July 4 to 10. From 16:00 to 22:00, 300 or 400 people enter the museum every day; From 22:00 to 24:00, although there were no more than 50 people on weekdays, it soared to nearly 200 people on weekends. "The night of the museum is very special, because it has a quiet and visual feeling different from that of the day. This special experience has a strong appeal to the public." Chen Lusheng, former deputy curator of the National Museum of China, wrote in the book "the beauty of museums". He believes that extending the opening of museums to the evening, as a normal, is very important for the city and the public. The opening of the museum at night, regardless of the length of time, reflects the level of civilization and civic quality of the city where it is located. In fact, before the outbreak of the epidemic, in order to promote the prosperity of the night economy, the cultural and tourism departments of some cities planned and organized the "collective action" of museums, which was linked to the night tourism routes of cities. In August 2019, the Guangzhou Bureau of culture and tourism organized eight pavilions, including the Guangzhou Museum and the memorial hall of Marshal Sun Yat Sen's mansion, to open at night, that is, every Friday, Saturday and Sunday to 21 o'clock, and provided interpretation services that were basically the same as during the day at night. From July to September 2019, Shanghai culture and Tourism Bureau piloted the normal night tour project of museums for the first time, and selected 14 pilot museums to extend the opening on Friday evening; From June to August 2021, the number of museums participating in the project expanded to 30, providing citizens and tourists with a wide range of night travel options. Unfortunately, under the influence of the epidemic, the cultural tourism industry is inevitably impacted, and this linkage form of "Museum fever" is gradually recovering. On July 12, 2022, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of culture and tourism issued a notice that Beijing Regional Museums will carry out activities such as delayed opening to light up the summer "night capital". Each museum will also extend the opening hours and carry out evening cultural activities according to the conditions in the museum, or make appropriate arrangements for evening reception based on the planned activities. The museum is becoming a new landmark of people's nightlife, opening a wonderful "Museum Night" for the audience in the hot summer. 2. The diversified museum space makes the audience linger "Giving priority to scientific and educational activities, supplemented by explanations" is the basic positioning of the 24-hour Museum of the Zhejiang nature museum. Perhaps this positioning made it gather a lot of popularity in more than a month of trial operation. Hong Lei, a scientific and educational staff member of the Zhejiang Natural History Museum, told reporters that in the summer, the 24-hour museum will hold several popular science education activities for young people, including fossil excavation and volcanic science experiments, and the weekend night show is "locked in early" by many parents and children. In order to make the audience of all ages have a pleasant experience of watching the exhibition, interactive devices can be seen everywhere in this 300 square meter small world: press the button under the bird specimen, you can hear its unique chirp; Spend 10 yuan on materials, color the simple strokes of fish, scan with AR device, and there will be fish swimming lightly on the projection screen; There is also an interesting device "I am taller than dinosaurs". The yuan universe theater can broadcast popular science movies on demand and watch online exhibitions. Tired of watching, the audience can also order a cup of coffee in the reading area, or taste the 24-hour Museum Limited ice cream and desserts. It can be said that "although the sparrow is small, it has all kinds of internal organs". "The development direction of museums now, especially the development direction of popular science education and exhibition, is very different from the traditional museums in the original sense." Hong Lei said that in the past, entering the museum was to "see" the exhibition, and the specimens were placed in the window display cabinet. Now, after a series of reforms, the display has diversified forms such as scene simulation, interactive exhibition items, multimedia, and combined with the living specimen exhibition box, which brings a different experience to the audience. While guiding the tour, Hong Lei paid attention to the different interests of audiences of different ages: children like dinosaurs named after the unearthed place in Zhejiang, such as Yangyan Dongyang shield dragon, Lixian Jiangshan dragon, Lishui Zhejiang dragon; Young and middle-aged audiences will be more attracted to rocks and minerals, native birds and insects; The elderly audience will prefer to study Chinese herbal medicine plants and grains seeds. "Taking the animals, plants and minerals around you as the theme is because you can touch them at ordinary times, but you don't understand them. Mining the knowledge around you can better inspire the interest of the audience." Hong Lei said. If "24 hours" is to let more tourists come to the museum through the extension of time, then when the visit is coming to an end, purchasing the museum's "customized" cultural and creative products is to let the museum integrate into people's daily life again. During the trial operation, the 24-hour Museum customized butterfly and Beetle crystal specimens and 24-hour Museum logo ice cream have been met with the audience. Next, the museum will develop a number of cultural and creative product systems, including meteorite and space series. Indeed, people expect the museum to integrate into the city's evening leisure lifestyle, so that more cultural resources can be more convenient to get close to. However, if the delay in opening is only the delay in opening the huge exhibition hall, it will burden the museum's manpower and capital, and on the contrary, it will cause a waste of resources. Therefore, making the museum "more wonderful at night" is inseparable from the museum's "crossing the river by touching the stone" in combination with its own actual situation, and also from the support of relevant departments and all sectors of society. 3. Opening at night is "not easy" and faces many challenges "The quality of exhibitions and activities determines the attraction of the night show. Audiences don't come when the door is open." Chen Zenglu, the curator of Wu Culture Museum, once said in an interview that the night show should not be simply open, but should be organically combined with educational activities, so that everyone can have a different enjoyment at this time from the day. Referring to the night activities of the museum, we have to mention the "Shangyuan night" Lantern Festival held by the Palace Museum in 2019, which became a hot topic at that time because "it was difficult to get a ticket". "The traffic of ticket grabbing is too large, resulting in the instant collapse of the website server", "scalper tickets are up to 9999 yuan" and other shocking news. The reason is that in addition to the festival, "scarcity" is the key - "the Forbidden City Museum is open to the public at night for the first time in 94 years" gimmick, which can't help but make people greedy. Therefore, discussions have been launched on social platforms: why can't night activities be launched frequently, so that more people have the opportunity to participate? Some experts analyzed that increasing lighting facilities and laying a large number of wires would increase the security risks in the Forbidden City, and the ancient wooden buildings could not afford this risk; Not to mention the difficulty of managing tourists at night, there are also some cultural relics that are not suitable for night exhibitions and need timely rest. In fact, not only the Forbidden City, but also museums at all levels in China face great challenges in normalizing the opening at night. Chen Lusheng believes that creating more special night shows is a huge test, because it not only prolongs the working hours of staff, but also faces the security problems and increased management costs caused by the extended opening. Therefore, the museum needs greater economic investment to maintain the night opening. Mumu Art Museum (798 Museum), located in Chaoyang District, Beijing, has tried to extend its opening hours to 21 o'clock, and at the same time, it is accompanied by night activities such as immersive art healing, concerts, and improvisational comedy experience. "In 798 Art District, there is an obvious' tide 'phenomenon in the passenger flow of the art museum, which is suitable for extending the opening hours on weekends and holidays. At the same time, according to the user survey results, only extending the opening hours can not significantly promote the audience to see the exhibition, but need to give the audience a sufficiently attractive reason." Lin Han, the founder, said that at present, he would not try to open it 24 hours a day, which should be comprehensively evaluated according to the epidemic prevention policy and the management requirements of the park where the art museum is located, combined with the needs of the audience of the art museum. Due to lack of manpower, the 24-hour Museum of Zhejiang nature museum publicly recruited non staff scientific and educational personnel in early July. According to Yan Hongming, the entire operation and management team of the 24-hour museum is composed of 9 full-time staff, with 2 part-time staff added in the summer
Edit：sishi Responsible editor：xingyong
Source：https://www.chinanews.com.cn/cul/
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