Lifestyle
Night At The Museum
The sun never sets on fun at these cultural institutions, where after-hours events offer creative new ways to experience the world’s most engaging art & science exhibitions
2026 will mark 20 years since the film Night at the Museum captured audiences’ imaginations with its fantastical notion of what happens when the lights go out at a major natural history museum. Culture enthusiasts today, however, can see for themselves.
Many of the world’s top art and science institutions regularly open their doors for special after-hours events, from insider tours and hands-on activities to expert lectures, cocktail hours and yoga or dance sessions among the galleries. If you’re really lucky, you might be able to snag a ticket for a full-on sleepover alongside dinosaur fossils and ancient works of art, just like 10-year-old you always wanted. Whether starting the weekend with a drink and a DJ set next to Hockneys and Warhols, or exploring dino displays by flashlight, these unique nighttime experiences make world-class museums come alive – even if the exhibits themselves don’t literally come to life.
Artistic Soirées
London’s V&A South Kensington claims to host “the original contemporary late-night event” – and they’re not kidding. Just a year after opening its doors in 1857, the Victoria and Albert Museum began making use of a revelatory new technology – gas lighting – to stay open late into the evening so working-class visitors could peruse the artworks at the end of their day. Now, culture vultures from all walks of life flock here on the last Friday of the month to partake in the museum’s Friday Late events, featuring performances, DJ sessions, debates and more set among the V&A’s formidable collection of art and design spanning 5,000 years of human history.
For fans of modern and contemporary art in London, the Tate Lates programme fills the captivating halls of Tate Modern with everything from live music to film screenings, guided workshops and talks by leading lights in the contemporary art scene.
The Friday night format is clearly a successful one, replicated by a number of institutions across the globe. In Hong Kong, the cutting-edge M+ runs their M+ at Night series one Friday per month, inviting you to kick off the weekend with a carefully curated experience often inspired by an ongoing exhibition. The September edition, riffing on the M+ Sigg Collection: Inner Worlds display, explored the theme of self-care through imagination with activities like yoga and ceramics; in October, Dream Rooms: Environments by Women Artists 1950s–Now inspired a night of movement, with music and dance weaving throughout the surreal exhibition’s larger-than-life artworks.
Likewise, the Dallas Museum of Art infuses Friday nights with creative energy and artistic vibes, blending cocktails and curator talks with musical performances and hands-on art-making, as well as after-hours access to the Postwar and Contemporary galleries. Jazz lovers in particular should look out for the DMA’s dedicated Jazz at the Museum events, where they can spend an evening sipping wine, snacking on canapés and listening as soulful melodies suffuse these halls of culture.
Meanwhile, in Sydney, Wednesday is when nocturnal art enthusiasts get their fill. Art After Hours at the Art Gallery of New South Wales hosts a varied line-up of events, including film screenings, artist panels, workshops, guided tours and themed evenings. Upcoming highlights include an art appreciation lecture series, a showcase of LGBTQIA+ creatives and storytellers, and a plushie workshop led by textile artist Kate Mitchell.
Heading to the City of Light? Set aside a Wednesday or Friday soir for one of the Louvre museum’s ‘nocturne’ events. Among the many boilerplate after-hours guided visits and 20-minute crash-course tours, you’ll also find unique offerings, from historian-led yoga sessions to perfume-making ateliers, art-inspired dance workshops and even a chance to jog among the Louvre’s world-famous art collection under the guidance of a professional athletic coach.
Annual Affairs
If hanging out at one museum after hours is already an exciting prospect, how about dozens of museums across an entire city in one extraordinary night? Buy a single ticket and get access to hundreds of activities at scores of cultural institutions until the wee hours of the morning – that’s the kind of steal the art world can get behind.
Berlin was the first city to propose such an idea, launching the inaugural Lange Nacht der Museen (Long Night of Museums) in 1997. Now, 43 editions later, the occasion sees 750 events held in 75 participating Berlin museums until 1am, with shuttle buses ferrying visitors to locations outside the city centre. The purchase of a ticket unlocks the whole experience – the only tough part is deciding whether you want to join a quiz night at the Bode-Museum, attend a talk at the Cannabis Museum, do karaoke with drag queens at Futurium, or dance it out with DJ Daniel Wang at the Humboldt Forum. Inspiring and engaging as it is, the Long Night of Museums quickly spread across Germany, and these days you can just about plan your annual cultural calendar around Teutonic takeovers, starting with Stuttgart in March and moving on to Hamburg in April, Frankfurt in May, Dresden in June, Berlin in August and Munich in October.
It’s not just the Germans: Barcelona hosts La Nit dels Museus in May; Brussels catches Museum Night Fever in October; Zurich goes all evening in September; and Amsterdam stays up in November. There’s even a broader European initiative, launched in 2005, that sets aside the third Saturday in May as the official European Night of Museums. More than 3,000 institutions in 30 countries took part in the 2025 edition – about a third of them in France, where the May event is widely observed.
Major cities beyond Europe’s borders have also adopted the idea. In New York, the Museum Mile Festival grants visitors free access to eight iconic cultural institutions along the stretch of Fifth Avenue between 82nd and 110th Streets, including the Met, the Guggenheim and the Smithsonian Design Museum, for one June evening. In Buenos Aires, La Noche de los Museos sees 300 cultural spaces offer free admission and special events, like tours, workshops and shows, until the early morning hours. Taipei’s Nuit Blanche, by contrast, takes a slightly different tack. Inspired by a similar soirée in Paris, the event turns the city streets into one big living museum for a night, complete with large-scale installations, performance art and open-air shows.
Immersive Sleepovers
After-hours DJ sets, fashion shows and interactive tours are all great ways to see your favourite institutions in a different light. But if there’s one thing better than spending an evening at the museum, it’s spending the night. That’s right: certain museums actually offer the chance to sleep among the galleries – if the excitement doesn’t keep you awake.
London’s British Museum invites kids to pack their sleeping bags and snooze among the ancient kings and gods of the Egyptian and Assyrian galleries, after spending the evening engrossed in a programme of crafts, stories and discovery led by expert historians, artists and reenactors. At the American Museum of Natural History – the filming location for Night at the Museum – youngsters can explore fascinating exhibits by flashlight (some of which featured in the movie) and enjoy scavenger hunts, trivia games, movie screenings and bedtime stories before falling asleep under the iconic blue whale display.
Heading Down Under, the Australian Museum hosts an annual DinoSnore sleepover packed with torchlight tours, interactive games, thrilling films and the unique opportunity to slumber alongside elephants and lions, or even in the shadow of dinosaur fossils. The Melbourne Museum proposes torch tours and themed games, too, as well as exclusive access to LEGO® Star Wars: The Exhibition and an immersive IMAX Avatar film viewing – snacks included.
While most institutions only offer sleepover experiences for school-age kids, teens and their caregivers, there’s still hope if you don’t have a mini companion to bring along. The Melbourne Museum and the UK’s Natural History Museum both host recurring sleepover events designed for grown-ups, complete with themed games, after-dark museum exploration and bedding down among the exhibits – so you can finally make your childhood dreams come true.
