What began as a novel way for the Yorkshire Museum to engage audiences online has quickly transformed into an international movement. But it's slowly coming to an end. For Now. "Many museums in the UK at least are starting to reopen and we thought it would be perfect to end while the the battles were still really popular," Lee Clark, the communications manager for the York Museums Trust, told Bored Panda.
Clark said the theme was chosen to give museums the chance to promote their star objects to potential visitors who will then hopefully come and see the real thing. "It was a great way to finish the series and saw entries from all over the world."
The Yorkshire Museum is thinking about bringing the battles back in the future in some form or other, and at different times of year, say for example a Christmas Battle or Halloween.
The staff at the museum consider the Curator Battle a huge success. "More than 5.4 million people have seen one of our Curator Battle tweets, with more than 1.5 million engagements. We saw coverage on CNN, Washing Post, Guardian UK and other media around the world."
The staff at the museum consider the Curator Battle a huge success. "More than 5.4 million people have seen one of our Curator Battle tweets, with more than 1.5 million engagements. We saw coverage on CNN, Washing Post, Guardian UK and other media around the world."
It was 'The Creepiest' that remains the most popular battle and has made the series a global phenomenon. "'Best Bum' was second with some incredible coverage around the world. We knew it would be a fun and interesting thing to try but the extent of the popularity has been fantastic for us and we hope for other museums," Clark said. "We would like to thank all of the museums who joined in, as the battles would be nothing without all the brilliant entries submitted. It has been so much fun learning about other museums' collections and we have felt a real sense of community being created, something we hope we can build on in the future."
The pandemic, however, remains an an incredibly difficult time for museums. York Museums Trust lost £1.5 million (nearly $2 million) in income in the four months they have been closed and they are expecting the impact of the pandemic to be felt for a long time to come.
If you have enjoyed the curator battles, it would be fantastic if you could make a donation to the Trust, if you are in a position to do so.
