Nights at the museum: DJs, pints, gin and Love Island

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from Dunedin News

From reporter Hamish McNeilly:

Some of the hottest tickets in Dunedin are being snapped up at for after dark events inside one of the city’s oldest institutions – Otago Museum.

Gin and Collections, Wine and Design, Cocktails and Chemistry, Planet and Pints, and Love Island are just some of the events recently held at the 155-year-old institution.

The latter resulted in people flying to Dunedin from as far away as Auckland to attend, with the event featuring entertainment, challenges similar to those on the popular TV show.

Another memorable event was themed around Friday the 13th, and featured a devil opening his jacket to each guest offering a choice of poison, a working tattooist and a fake priest.

“We do crazy things,” said Charlie Buchan, who started at the museum as marketing co-ordinator almost three years ago and is now assistant marketing manager.

Whatever the title, the unusual marketing strategy appears to be working.

Ticketing numbers for free and paid events at Tūhura Otago Museum have jumped from 11,527 in 2019-20, to 26,638 in 2021-22.

With Covid wiping out the international visitor industry, the museum had to get creative to make up for funding shortfalls.

“We have to do things differently,” Buchan said.

‘‘We had to pivot because we need repeat visitation, we couldn’t rely on people bringing their kids in because it is a rainy day.’’

That included partnering with small businesses hurting during Covid, and using the museum as a hub.

Local distilleries showcased their products as part of Gin and Collections, which also offered people a peak behind the scenes of some of the 1.5 million items in the museum’s collections.

Another event, Planet and Pints, was the idea of museum event manager Rachel MacJeff, and involved people having a beer – brewed especially for the museum by students at Otago Polytechnic – inside the museum’s planetarium.

And the name of that pale ale? The world’s best museum (beer).

The events attracted a more diverse range of people to the museum, which led to increased partnerships with local brands.

‘‘We click the ticket a little bit,” Buchan said.

“We aren’t doing it to be profit-driven but the Government and council aren’t funding us to our capabilities at the moment.”

Other museums were interested in Otago’s approach, particularly how active it was across social media platforms, he said.

Upcoming events at the museum included Children’s Day, Yoga with the Butterflies, and Medieval Family Day, ffeaturing a screening of the Princess Bride.

Later this month the museum would host another After Dark event, Pride Party, which featured a cocktail bar, karaoke lip-sync, and drag queen bingo.

Buchan said the aim was to attract more people to the museum, particularly on quiet nights.

“I wanted to bring a bit of that New York, that London, back to town ... but at the museum.”

Other ideas included early morning events, such as a silent disco before people started work. The alcohol-free event would offer healthy smoothies and be pitched at corporates aiming to build culture.

Building culture and identity was important for an institution still wanting to be relevant 155 years after it opened its doors, Buchan said.

That was evident when he was at the Otago University Students’ Association’s tent city, on the museum reserve, for Orientation Week.

Among the deals on offer for students included free tickets to the planetarium, but that offer was countered by second-year students asking “where is the museum?”

That was the challenge, he said.

But it was changing, and part of that was appealing to a younger market who shared their experiences on social media.