If you wander through a museum, you will agree with me: there are not that many young people most of the time. It is the same in the Netherlands, where museums try hard to get young people interested to go to museums – and they come up with some interesting initiatives.

Stadsarchief (city archive) of Amsterdam, where the opening of the Museumnacht was held this year. (Image by Jan de Boer at Flickr.com under license CC BY ND 2.0)

Een uitverkochte nacht

A night with many impressive performances, access to over 50 museums, spread throughout the entire city of Amsterdam. That’s the Museumnacht (museum night). And for only 20 euros, you could be part of it. So unsurprisingly, the annual event was again fully sold out. It drew 32,000 people last Saturday, 80% of whom are young, between 18-35 years old. Bigger than ever, the already seventeenth edition of the night was held at 57 locations all over Amsterdam, even in the outskirts of the city. What was there to see?

The night was opened at 6 pm in the Stadsarchief (city archive) of Amsterdam with a cool concert given by label Top Notch and Noah’s Ark. Until 2 am, there were all kinds of things to do. From dansoptredens (dance performances), wetenschap (science) or duurzaam eten (sustainable food) to documentaires (documentaries), workshops or moderne kunst (modern art). With more than 400 events, the night was packed! For a full list of the range of activities, click here.

The ticket also gave a discount for openbaar vervoer (public transportation) and many nightclubs, so you could see as much as you wanted and celebrate further even after the museumnacht closed.

Meer jongeren in musea

Image by Franklin Heijnen at Flickr.com under license CC BY SA 2.0

So that is all nice and good, but what’s the point of this museumnacht?

As Roel van den Sigtenhorst, project manager of N8, explains: “De museumnacht is een eerste introductie in de musea en dat helpt voor jongeren als ze al een keer binnen in het museum zijn geweest. En dat is de eerste stap. Dan wordt de drempel, merken wij, veel minder hoog om nog een keer te gaan.” (The Museum Night is a first introduction to museums and it helps youth if they have already been inside a museum. And that is the first step. We notice that the threshold to go again is then much lower.)

So the whole night aims at drawing more people to go to museums and introducing them to expositions and art by packaging it all in an eventful and exciting night.

Met een app door de nacht

The Museumnacht was accompanied by the Museumnacht app. In the app, the bezoekers (visitors) could see which places were het drukst (the busiest), so they could go to a location where they wouldn’t have to wait too long. Furthermore, the app provides you with an additional ticket to visit one of the museums again until December 31, 2016. That gives young people the opportunity to really visit again without being shooed by costs of a ticket. Nice!

Jongerenclubs van musea

More and more museums have jongerenclubs (youth clubs) that bring in new ideas for vernieuwing (innovation). One such museum is the Scheepvaartmuseum (maritime museum). This is also a way that museums try to attract more young bezoekers.

Ook in andere steden

Museumnachten are also organized in other cities, such as Rotterdam, Den Haag and Leiden. Also many Belgian cities, such as Brussels and Antwerp, organize a Museumnacht. These take place on many different dates throughout the year.

Would you like to visit a Museumnacht? For the one in Amsterdam, the target audience is the local youth that does not go to museums often, which is why international payment options are disabled. So the only way to get into the Museumnacht is to go to Amsterdam first, and then get the ticket! You can of course also try other cities that organize their Museumnacht on a different date. 

Is there a similar event in or around your city? Does it have a certain goal as well? Is the youth more/less interested in museums in your country? Let me know in the comments below!