Eureka! The National Children’s Museum in Halifax welcomed 303,545 visitors in 2017, its highest attendance for twenty years.
The European premiere of STEAM exhibition, digiPlaySpace, proved a major crowd-puller, with visitor numbers up more than 15,000 on the previous year.
Housed in the museum’s new Spark Gallery, digiPlaySpace was created by Toronto International Film Festival. The futuristic technology-led STEAM playground has proved a massive hit, forcing the museum to extend its original six-month run to Easter 2018.
Children have the chance to play with robots, learn to code, play games and interact with new technologies. They can also explore light and sound in physical and creative ways.
“It’s fantastic to see Eureka! booming,” noted Sir Gary Verity, Chief Executive of Welcome to Yorkshire. “The new gallery has obviously added some extra ‘spark’ to this already well-loved and unique family attraction. Halifax is experiencing a wonderful renaissance right now and it’s great to see Eureka! at the heart of that success.”
Eureka! hosting digital art exhibition this summer
The museum is already looking to the future with plans underway for a second location in the Mersey region, in partnership with Merseytravel and Wirral Council.
The digital theme looks set to continue in 2018, with a digital art exhibition opening this summer, although details are somewhat sketchy at present.
“There is no better end to the celebrations for our 25th anniversary year than knowing the last 12 months saw so many people flock to Eureka! to enjoy everything we have on offer,” commented Eureka! Chief Executive Leigh-Anne Stradeski.
“The huge increase in numbers was very much down to lots of new first-time visitors from across the UK coming to see digiPlaySpace, which is so pleasing as it was a very different exhibit for us.
“Many other visitors have been families coming back twice or more using our innovative ticketing system where people pay once and return as many times as they want over a year.”
