FLYING FISH, a world-renowned producer of touring museum and science centre exhibitions, works with the world’s preeminent institutions to bring ideas, collections, and exhibitions to life through conceptualising, designing, fabricating, and travelling these exhibitions throughout the world.
This year, Flying Fish will launch OceanXperience with the non-profit ocean exploration organization OceanX. A unique and immersive touring exhibition, OceanXperience aims to raise awareness of the world’s oceans.
The new experience will use footage recorded during OceanX’s deep-sea research missions to take guests on an underwater, story-driven adventure. Along the way, they will get a chance to feel what it is like to be on board the organisation’s cutting-edge OceanXplorer ship, taking part in critical research.
The mission behind Flying Fish
Jay Brown, principal and managing director of Flying Fish, founded the company with the mission to increase financial sustainability for museums and science centres through touring exhibitions. He tells blooloop:
“Flying Fish was founded in late 2013, out of an industry need. At the time, I felt as if the power in the touring exhibitions industry was in the hands of the suppliers: the private touring exhibition companies. I knew that the true power always rests in the hands of the venues or the institutions. They just didn’t realise it. Ten years ago, the industry was far less complex, with significantly fewer offerings than we see now.
“Flying Fish was founded on consultation with the venues through contract negotiations, the development of operational and hosting strategies, including the venues in the whole process, treating them as partners. This helped them to realise that, ultimately, the suppliers needed the venues and not the other way around.”
From that point, the company has grown organically, according to the needs of its clients.
“We started off consulting, and then we moved into the representation of their exhibitions. As we consulted with them, they realised that we were, naturally, the best people to take their exhibitions out to the world. From representation, we grew operationally and logistically to manage or offer turnkey touring exhibition services.”
Growing the company ‘For Museums, By Museums’
Within the last few years, Flying Fish has come into its own in the design and fabrication of touring exhibitions and has also extended its scope. Commenting on that growth, Brown says:
“We started in Melbourne, taking Australian museum exhibitions to North America and Europe. The North American market is by far the largest touring exhibition market in the world, so we started to work with clients there, where the greatest need was. Since entering this market, Flying Fish has grown to the point where about 90% of our employees are based in the US and Canada.”
“We are a true colleague to the industry, rather than just being a private supplier. We always involve a museum or science centre in our exhibitions and allow that partner to showcase their expertise, bringing their curatorial and subject matter expertise to the project.”
This lets the character of the individual institution shine through.
“It also adds a significant amount of authenticity to the projects, because it’s not just Jay and his team coming up with the concept. We’re bringing in the experts from within that institution or industry on all our projects.”
A financially sustainable model
In terms of sustainability, Brown says:
“We can look at it in a few different ways. Touring exhibitions provide a fantastic opportunity for our partner institutions to not only showcase their expertise and collections on a global stage but when done correctly, these exhibitions should also provide a significant and consistent source of income for those institutions.”
That is something that has proven critical as the sector comes out of the uncertain times of the pandemic.
“It’s a shot in the arm for a lot of our clients, and it provides for bolstered internal resources, new staff, new projects, as well as an ongoing stable source of passive income for the institution.”
Touring exhibitions are also a useful means of reaching new audiences:
“Talking with all of our clients over the years, especially out of Australia and definitely in North America, one thing that they’re all trying to do is extend their mission, their knowledge, and their expertise globally, rather than adhering to their regional markets.”
Ground-breaking projects from Flying Fish
Flying Fish has done some fascinating and ground-breaking projects:
“We’ve had a lot of very successful exhibitions,” he says. “A lot of what we look for are enduring concepts or enduring content, rather than going down the branded route. We focus on really making sure that the content that we produce and that we tour resonates with everybody over the long term.”
Its first big international tour was Tyrannosaurs: Meet the Family with the Australian Museum. “We took that on in 2016, 2017. It was a great exhibition, and it continues to tour. It’s been on the international stage now for nine years. I think it’s so successful because the content is fantastic. They have great specimens, and it was one of the first dinosaur exhibitions to bring AV and multimedia into the experience.”
For the Apollo: When We Went to the Moon exhibition, Flying Fish partnered with the US-based U.S. Space & Rocket Center and George C. Marshall Space Flight Center out of Huntsville, Alabama for an exhibition to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing:
“They were amazing partners in terms of design, development, and, obviously, access to significant archives. We were able to include some fantastic artefacts and objects in the exhibition. That one continues to do well; it has been on tour since February 2019 and is booked out through 2025.
“There’s a public interest in space – and dinosaurs. They inspire imagination. Most people are not going to be able to go to space, and we weren’t around when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth, thankfully, but everyone’s imagination is sparked. I think that’s why those two exhibitions are so successful with visitors.”
A fascination with the ocean
There have also been ocean-based exhibitions that pre-dated OceanX:
“Voyage to the Deep – Underwater Adventures and James Cameron – Challenging the Deep were two exhibitions that we worked on with the Australian National Maritime Museum. Both of those have enjoyed very consistent tours within North America.
“Voyage to the Deep is focused on great STEM learning outcomes and is highly interactive for kids. That one just keeps on ticking; it’s extremely successful. For the James Cameron – Challenging the Deep exhibition, Australian National Maritime Museum did a great job on the content and artefacts, covering adventure, innovation, and scientific discovery.”
He adds:
“One that is close to my heart, being Canadian, is our Hockey: Faster than Ever exhibition. We had an amazing collaboration with Montreal Science Centre and very generous support from the National Hockey League, and the NHLPA, which is the Players’ Association. A large equipment manufacturer, CCM, was kind enough to support the exhibition with equipment and different things for our interactives.
“That exhibition opened last year in Seattle, and it’s doing exceptionally. It’s about to open in Calgary, Alberta. Bringing all those partners together to produce something special has been a great experience, a privilege really”
While working on a project, the team immerses itself in the world they are exploring.
“I love my job,” says Brown. “There is always something different happening, and we’re always working on new and exciting projects. I feel very lucky.”
OceanX and Flying Fish
OceanXperience is the result of a collaboration between Flying Fish and the non-profit ocean exploration organization OceanX.
An immersive, one-of-a-kind, adventure-driven touring exhibition featuring footage captured during OceanX’s ground-breaking deep-sea research missions, it raises awareness of the world’s oceans, and the challenges they face, and will be available to interested museums and science centres, beginning in summer 2023.
Having worked with Avatar Alliance, one of James Cameron’s companies, on the James Cameron – Challenging the Deep exhibition, Flying Fish was recommended to OceanX as the touring partner to help design, fabricate, and tour the exhibition globally.
Brown explains:
“The creative process is really special at Flying Fish. We don’t go away and do it all by ourselves; we make sure to bring in the strengths of each party.”
Flying Fish covers the design and content development, project management, and all the touring aspects:
“OceanX brings in the ocean scientists and their massive media archive. They’ve got millions of hours of footage from locations all over the globe. OceanX has perhaps the most advanced ocean exploration vehicle on the planet in the OceanXplorer.”
Bringing ocean science to the masses
OceanXplorer, the most advanced exploration, research, and media vessel ever built, with the ability to explore Earth’s most unreachable areas; pushes the limits of discovery.
“They wanted to bring ocean science to the masses, through a touring exhibition showcasing their discoveries and innovations as well as the majesty of our oceans.”
The mission is to help the public develop and deepen their love of oceans:
“They cover the vast majority of the planet, yet we know so little about them,” he comments. “Until recently, it was hard to get to many of those places. OceanXplorer opens the world’s eyes to just how special the oceans are.”
Having formed that emotional connection, people will be inspired to help tackle the challenges that the oceans are facing:
“Most recently, I spent 11 years in Melbourne. The ocean is a passion of mine, having spent much of my youth and the latter part of my life in and around it,” Brown says. “This project is very close to my heart in so many ways. OceanX’s objective is about bringing a love for the oceans to the public and showcasing the special footage they’re capturing. The footage we’ve had the privilege of viewing is just unbelievable, and I can’t wait to bring it to a global audience.”
New technologies
Much of the story will be conveyed using digital technologies that have never been seen before in touring exhibitions.
“We’re bringing Microsoft technologies onboard the OceanXplorer and into the exhibition, which features the Hololens.” This allows visitors to interact directly with the content being displayed through the headset.”
“There’s a lot of digital interactives throughout the exhibition,” he adds. “The exhibition will replicate, in so many ways, the OceanXplorer itself, allowing the visitor to dive into life on board, participate in things like whale tagging missions, or pilot a remotely operated vehicle to explore the deep ocean.
Flying Fish and technology
The exhibition also has an immersive theatre:
“It’s the last experience in the show, and acts as a reflection point for the visitor to consider the oceans; just how special they are, and, maybe, what kind of impact they can have on reversing some of the damage we’ve done over the years.”
The technology, he stresses, is a vehicle for the experience, rather than vice-versa:
“At Flying Fish, we don’t use technology just because it’s new and exciting. We want to use it in the most innovative, yet stable, way possible. The adage ‘keep it simple, stupid (KISS)’ applies to touring exhibitions. Most of us watched movies with special effects in the eighties and thought they were amazing at the time. But on seeing them again now, in an age of advancing technology, we can see the green screen behind the actors.”
“I think that applies to the use of technology going forward. We don’t want to date our experiences; rather, we want to transport that visitor to another place.”
More services added
Since its founding in 2013, Flying Fish has diversified, adding services to its foundation of touring exhibitions.
“We’ve branched out, not away from touring exhibitions, but by offering additional services, such as permanent installations. We’ve done immersive theatres, for instance; we did a large one for Cincinnati Museum Center, including all the hardware specification and installation, the motion graphics and footage for the display based around Neil Armstrong.”
The company is now doing an increasing number of bespoke tech installations:
“We have several new projects beginning around the digital interactive and immersive experience spaces. We are developing our tech quiver in so many ways, bringing a lot of expertise into Flying Fish.”
This is in addition to consultation, exhibition design and production, and operational planning:
“We’re effective, for lack of a better term, a one-stop-shop in so many ways. We’ve built ourselves as one of the few vertically integrated touring companies in the world, meaning that we can take everything from ideation to launching and operating a long-term global tour.”
What’s next for Flying Fish?
The capability to offer a range of services, as well as to produce exceptional international touring exhibitions informed by expertise, puts Flying Fish in a group of one. He comments:
“I think that has come out of a need to deliver a premium client experience. We have a lot of repeat business, and that is because we’ve become an extremely skilled, client-first company.”
Plans involve consolidating their position, and then building on that base:
“I never set out to have a company that had a hundred employees, taking on hundreds of projects a year, because I think you lose that client focus. I see us now as being quite selective in our projects, focusing on those where we can add the most value, and ensuring that we’re always putting out industry-leading work.
“For us, it’s more about the client and the project than it is about turning the business into a much larger company. I’d rather have happy clients all the time than those that aren’t getting a hundred percent of us.”
