RBS Museum Lates: Night of the Mummy

National Museum of Scotland, Friday 24 February 2012, 7pm to 11pm.

The programme for the second of the RBS Museum Lates events at the National Museum of Scotland on Friday 24 February has been announced. Subtitled Night of the Mummy, the event takes place just a fortnight after the opening of the Museum’s major new Fascinating Mummies exhibition and so there will be an ancient Egyptian flavour to the night.

Following on from the huge success of the first RBS Museum Lates event in November, which sold out within two weeks of tickets going on sale, capacity for the hotly-anticipated event has been increased to 2,000 (from 1,300). Opening hours have been extended, so the event will run from 7pm to 11pm.

Musical headliners will be critically acclaimed Glasgow-based folk-rockers, Sparrow and the Workshop, with support from Edinburgh four-piece Bwani Junction, tipped to be one of the breakthrough acts of 2012. Compere and DJ for the evening will again be Ally McCrae, host of BBC Radio 1’s Introducing in Scotland programme.

The event takes place a fortnight after the opening of Fascinating Mummies, the first major paid exhibition since the transformed Museum reopened in the summer. A limited number of combination tickets offering discounted admission to the exhibition itself will be on sale, and there will be an Egyptian theme running throughout the Museum for the evening. The Museum’s Learning Centre will be transformed into a bazaar, with hieroglyphics, craft workshops and facepainters, with some sign-up activities on the night including the chance to Unwrap the Mummy.

Other surprises are in store, with plans including comedy in the auditorium, a roaming fashion show and the opportunity to have your picture taken in Egyptian garb by the imposing Nubian statue in the Grand Gallery. 

Popular features from the first event will return, with Fresh Air FM bringing silent disco to the Imagine Gallery, pop-up bars in the Grand Gallery and the unique opportunity to simply explore the galleries of the transformed Museum by night.

Stephen Allen, Head of Learning and Programmes at National Museums Scotland, said:

“After the success of the first of the RBS Museum Lates, we’re really pleased and exciting to announce the programme for this one, which will be even bigger and better. We’re retaining all the elements that worked so well last time – particularly the silent disco which was tremendously popular. Loosely themed around our Fascinating Mummies exhibition, we’re sure people will get into the spirit and hopefully even into some fun costumes.”

Andrew Wilson, Head of Group Communications at RBS, said: 

"The first RBS Museum Lates evening was a fantastic event and proved to be incredibly popular. The event gave people the opportunity to experience this outstanding institution in a very new and exciting way and we're delighted to be supporting the programme into 2012."

RBS Museum Lates: Night of the Mummy, takes place on Friday 24 February from 7pm to 11pm. Tickets are on sale now, priced £10 (£8 concession).

The combination ticket with entry to the Fascinating Mummies (normally £9.50) is £18 (£16 concession). National Museums Scotland members pay £8 for admission, including entry to the exhibition.

The Museum Brasserie will be open both before and during the event.

Further information and images from Bruce Blacklaw, Hannah Dolby or Susan Gray, Press Office, tel 0131 247 4165 or email b.blacklaw@nms.ac.uk.

Note to Editors

Please note that National Museums Scotland (no “of” or “the”) is our corporate name. Our individual museums are called the National Museum of Scotland, the National Museum of Flight, the National Museum of Rural Life, the National Museum of Costume and the National War Museum.

The exhibition will be supported by a programme of public events.

Fascinating Mummies

The first major exhibition in the National Museum of Scotland’s new purpose-built exhibition space will be Fascinating Mummies, featuring treasures from two of the world’s great ancient Egyptian collections. Objects dating back as far as 4000BC will guide visitors through the complex rituals surrounding death and afterlife in ancient Egypt, including mummification and burial.

The National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, the Netherlands, has one of the world’s leading ancient Egyptian collections, with an extraordinary range of material including human and animal mummies. This material will be complemented by a small selection from National Museums Scotland’s own collections. These feature thousands of objects from ancient Egypt, including mummies and coffins collected in the mid-19th century by Scottish archaeologist Alexander Henry Rhind.

For many, this will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see these internationally significant exhibits as the National Museum of Scotland will be the only UK venue for Fascinating Mummies. The exhibition runs from 11 Feb to 27 May 2012. You can find out more about the exhibition here.