The Inspiration<\/p>\n
Visitor Profiling research for local museums in Northern Ireland in 2016 revealed that representation was lowest in the 18-40 age category, accounting for around only a quarter of all museum visits. People were visiting museums as children, with their family, or when they’re older but there was a lack of engagement from those in-between.<\/p>\n
In 2018, NI Museums Council partnered with Thrive and Seedhead Arts to run an audience development project to help museums attract this missing audience with funding from National Lottery Heritage Fund, Tourism NI, and Department for Communities as part of the 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage.<\/p>\n
The Project<\/p>\n
What we came up with was \u2018The Late Shift\u2019 – a series of after-hours, adults-only events that took place in museums across Northern Ireland during the Halloween season.<\/p>\n
Over 1,000 paying visitors attended six unique events. Visitors honed their zombie-survival skills at North Down Museum in Bangor, joined a \u2018Carnival of Delights\u2019 in Newry\u2019s Bagenal\u2019s Castle, gave sunrise yoga a go at Mossley Mill in Newtownabbey, went \u2018Into the Mystic\u2019 with Armagh County Museum, joined a 15th<\/sup>-century house party in Enniskillen Castle, and saw Ryan Vail headline \u2018The Dark Tower\u2019 in Derry-Londonderry\u2019s Tower Museum.<\/p>\n Along the way, museums had support, training and capacity building with creative programming, evaluation, and marketing and communications.<\/p>\n Evaluation and Impact<\/p>\n Key findings:<\/p>\n 2019 and beyond<\/p>\n 25th<\/sup> October \u2013 2 November 2019 saw our second Late Shift festival with 8 museums taking part. Feedback is still coming through but we hope to have it all analysed by the end of 2019 so watch this space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Inspiration Visitor Profiling research for local museums in Northern Ireland in 2016 revealed that representation was lowest in the 18-40 age category, accounting for around only a quarter of all museum visits. People were visiting museums as children, with their family, or when they’re older but there was a lack of engagement from those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n