Night At The Museum Guest Experience Standby

Kimberly Bradford

Guests begin by walking through the entrance that mocks that of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City with signage for the “Night at the Museum: After Hours” experience. Guests enter a brightly lit lobby-esque corridor with ride signage and and monitors hanging from above where they are greeted by a video of Larry welcoming them to the museum. He explains to the guests that it’s an especially busy day because they’re hosting an after hours tour to a select group of museum guests. Guests should feel like they are on an exclusive VIP experience. Guests should feel warmth, welcoming music, sense of museum lobby.

Guests are then told to proceed to the Mummy Exhibit. Guests continue through corridor and space gets darker and more dimly lit walls turn to dark stone to emulate underground of Pharaoh’s tomb.  It will also get colder with more ominous music than lobby.

Guests enter the Mummy exhibit where the queue wraps around a large coffin based on King Tut is placed in middle that shakes, sparkles, and makes coughing noises as if coming to life.  King Ahkemenrah comes onto monitor after coming to life and is introduced to guest. He shows them how his tablet brings the exhibits to life each night as the sun goes down. 

Guests then proceed through another corridor where we go back to original corridor space with wood flooring, warmer feeling, gallery style walls, western music plays, signage we are entering the Miniatures Room. Guests will walk through permanent stanchions made of glass as cases where they are introduced to Jedidiah and Octavius miniatures, who are in the middle of all out mock or “play” war between the westerners and the gladiators. This will be projection mapped from exhibits built into ceiling of glass cases guests will be able to watch several different shootouts and gladiator scenes mixed together as they walk through the museum with playful dialogue and hidden Easter eggs. Inspiration from the Throne Miniatures Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago or Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle at the Museum of Science and Industry.  

The guests then proceed through from gallery corridor to naturalistic rainforest environment as they head outdoors. Trees, hedges, and lush flora and fauna surround guests as well as nature sounds. Guests may spot Dexter, a monkey animatronic interactive who loves playing pranks on guests, but especially loves playing pranks on Larry who meets us in this environment via monitor.  Since Dexter only speaks in monkey noises and mimes, the interaction he has with Larry is essential for guests to understand jokes and mischief. Guests then continue through the queue around the giant heads from Easter Island that banter and speak variations of their iconic “dum-dum” catch phrase that we hear in the movie. This area also features an extended queue if necessary with movable stanchions. 

Guests enter back inside to a large lobby-like circular room featuring inspirational music and in the center an animatronic Teddy Roosevelt on his horse Texas. Guests will interact with Teddy asking him questions as he responds and rotates on a turntable in real time. The stanchions will lower and rise allowing guests to have a direct line of site with Teddy and Texas as they converse. Guests are then interrupted by sounds and flashing lights as monitors drop down from the ceiling of Larry as he pulls up surveillance video of the former security guards trying to steal the tablet from the Mummy Exhibit. King Ahkemenrah comes on the screen and tells us we have to go board the security truck to catch these goons.  

Guests will then continue through a final corridor as lights flash and alarms sound reiterating to guests that urgency of retrieving the stolen tablet. The corridor will look like a staff only area that’s normally restricted to guests. Ahkemenrah spiels safety information as guests proceed to load at the end of the corridor.

RIDE

Guests will exit their ride vehicle and head down a hallway through to the gift shop, which will be themed as a museum gift shop. Guests will be able to purchase American Museum of Natural History memorabilia as well as stuffed animals, mummy-inspired attire, and “After Hours Survival Kit” that includes items guests may have seen cast members carrying in their security belts or in ride vehicles themselves. This allows guests to take a piece of the museum home with them and therefore keep the magic alive “after hours” in their own homes.