Museums

Tuesday, November 15, 2011 What are you main objectives for the IAAPA Expo?    We asked the 3000+ members of Blooloop's LinkedIn group, “Are you planning on attending the IAAPA Expo? If so, what are your main objectives?”...View more

Sunday, November 13, 2011 What's the Big Idea? Looking at the Legacy of the Millennium Commission    If you visit the Millennium Commission website you might be forgiven for thinking that every visitor attraction project they were involved in was an unqualified success. ...View more

Wednesday, September 07, 2011 Themed Design: The Attraction of Scent    When my bottle of cologne hit the bathroom floor this morning it wasn’t the sight of broken glass that occupied my senses. It was the scent. It was powerful. It took me right back to the shop where I tried it on for the first time. I have always been interested in scents, and the use of scent is starting to blossom in some sectors....View more

Thursday, July 28, 2011 Reflecting on One Kind of Reality for Fulldome    This month I and my Loch Ness Productions colleague Mark C. Petersen had the opportunity to see the last shuttle launch of Atlantis from the Press Site at the Kennedy Space Center. We were accredited newsies, covering the event for Sky & Telescope online, and I also wrote a story for Yahoo News. Of course, being fulldome producers, we took advantage of that proximity to take immersive imagery, all in the spirit of capturing the moment for domed posterity. ...View more

Tuesday, July 12, 2011 Themed Entertainment: TEA’s Mr. Mission Control – Buzz Price (1921 – 2010)    It’s been nearly a year (August 15, 2010) since Buzz Price passed away and since then I’ve had numerous opportunities to talk with friends and colleagues about dad. Everyone that knew dad had a favorite story. ...View more

Tuesday, March 15, 2011 Should National Museums allow Free Entry?

The debate over whether our National Museums should allow free entry is rumbling into life again, this time from an unusual direction. It was expected that the Conservatives would have it in their manifesto heading into last year's General Election, but it didn’t appear. Instead came the promise that National Museums would be given greater freedom to manage their own finances. In other words there would be a reduction in government investment.

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Saturday, February 19, 2011 Chicago's World Class Museums drawing the crowds    Chicago’s 14 top museums and zoos are key economic drivers for Illinois, generating in excess of $1 billion in economic impact in the state, creating over 26,000 jobs and encouraging hundreds of thousands of tourists to make the Windy City their destination of choice....View more

Saturday, February 05, 2011 Museums: Smithsonian’s attendance tops record year and Tate outgrow galleries    Last year was a great year for The Smithsonian Museums here in the US and the Tate’s four galleries in the UK. The attendances generated by The Smithsonian's 19 Museums and zoo, and the Tate’s four galleries were both listed in “BlooloopFacts” on our news page in January. Here is a recap....View more

Thursday, December 23, 2010 What is more important, recruitment or training?    In terms of time and money spent I guess most people would say training. After all most organisations have training budgets, but only the recruitment of top line managers is treated as an investment. And of course we train the trainers, while those who recruit tend to learn on the job, especially if they’re ‘only’ recruiting seasonal staff....View more

Tuesday, October 26, 2010 "Expertise & Participation": What Museums can learn from Town Halls    What do you think of when you hear the term "town hall"? I think of my American Intellectual History class taught by the venerable Professor Blodgett at Oberlin College. I call upon memories of tweed jackets, pipes, and a lot of old books on shelves......View more

Friday, June 11, 2010 Imiloa Fulldome Fest looking for a few good shows – June 15 cutoff    A note from Shawn Laatsch, the planetarium manager of the Imiloa Astronomy Center of Hawai'i: “Imiloa Astronomy Center of Hawaii will be hosting a full dome film festival from October 5 - 10, 2010 immediately following the ASTC 2010 Conference in Honolulu. ...View more

Thursday, October 08, 2009 Telescopes, planetariums & digital domes: Stargazing on the White House Lawn    We have received interesting news and images from friends in the planetarium community. A “star party” took place at the White House the evening of 7 Oct......View more

Thursday, August 20, 2009 Museums: Tills at Britain's Museums ringing as if it's Christmas    Interesting feature today about how the UK's museums and stately homes are seeing a huge increase in "cultural retail sales" as stay-at-home-holidaymakers splash out on cultural keepsakes and mementos. London's Natural History Museum has seen a 21% increase in gift shop sales and the National Trust's 220 shops have generated over £36 million...
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Thursday, June 11, 2009 Themed Design: Building a Brachiosaur- Video    It’s not every day you spot the largest animal to walk the earth trying to break into a building, least of all an august institution such as the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. But watch the video, look again, this is no 50 tonne felon …...View more

Thursday, June 04, 2009 Museums: Developing Uniquely 21st Century Museum Experiences    Just the other day, I saw the future. I was invited to view the goings-on at Robert C. Fisler School at a site visit sponsored by Apple Computer. Robert C. Fisler was the first K-8 in Southern CA to integrate the use of Apple laptops 24/7 for all 2-8th graders. What did I see?...View more

Tuesday, June 02, 2009 Museum Design: Blistering Barnacles, it's Tintin and Magritte!    There are famously not any famous Belgians. However, today sees the opening of a museum each for two of the Kingdom’s most celebrated sons: the acclaimed artist - and painter of floating pipes - Magritte and that intrepid boy reporter and comic strip character Tintin....View more

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 Museum Design: Who is this Man?    A photograph caught my eye today. It shows a man on the roof of a men’s lavatory in a California State Park. Why is he there? Why is he in black and white? Is he spying on someone through the skylight?                                                                 ...View more

Tuesday, May 12, 2009 Museums: An Outpouring in Paper and Pencil - Visitors to Calif Academy Get to the Point on Climate Change    For the new California Academy of Sciences, my company, Cinnabar Inc., produced the exhibit “Altered State,” which focuses on climate change and California....View more

Saturday, May 09, 2009 Special Venue Media: Musings on the Fulldome Market    "So, what's the fulldome market like these days?" That's a question we hear at Loch Ness Productions pretty often--and it's a serious topic of conversation any time two or more fulldome theater folk (or those who want to be in fulldome) get together. In the past year I've had conversations with several media producers at various meetings who expressed some interest in "getting into the fulldome market."...View more

Monday, April 13, 2009 Museums: Subverting the Dominant Paradigm - What's it all about?    Talk business in any industry and there is sure to be a wide variety of new-fangled phrases, euphemisms and cobbled together sound-bites infecting the lexicon. Management speak is a global phenomenon and board rooms the world over resonate with ideas being run up flag poles, paradigm shifts, blue sky thinking and thrusting young managers running with balls, hitting home runs, herding cats etc......View more

Thursday, March 05, 2009 Museums: Unique Underwater Museum for Egypt's Famed Ancient City    In the news this last week, The UNESCO backed giant underwater museum, designed by French architect Jacques Rougerie, a specialist in water based construction, is to be located on the site of Cleopatra’s Palace in Alexandria and is set to break ground/water in 2010 and be completed in 3 years.
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Friday, February 27, 2009 Bridging the History/Art Divide: The Multi-Disciplinary Museum of the Future    What do art works by Werner Heldt, White House footage of Reykjavik summit meetings, and an original draft of President Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” speech have in common?
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Monday, December 01, 2008 Themed Entertainment: Riding Shuttle Launch Experience    One of the perks of having the IAAPA show in Orlando is getting to tour the local attractions and bring along family members. Boaz Rubin, husband of Blooloop editor Judith Rubin, wrote his impressions of Shuttle Launch Experience at Kennedy Space Center....View more

Thursday, October 16, 2008 "World-Class Planetarium Invests $39.50 on Overhead Projector"    The above is not a headline you often see and there is a compelling reason: Overhead projectors are simply no good for presenting educational star shows. It seems obvious enough that there’s a world – indeed, a universe - of difference between a planetarium system and an overhead projector, but a mix-up between the two contributed to a recent John McCain campaign gaffe that has been the subject of much commentary in the science community....View more

Friday, October 10, 2008 Fulldome Video Gains Followers at Jackson Hole Symposium    A report from Dan Neafus, a founder of the trade group IMERSA, which seeks to promote the diverse applications of fulldome technology in multiple markets....View more

Thursday, October 02, 2008 Producing for Fulldome: One Company’s Story    Content for fulldome is still largely rooted in the planetarium’s traditional role of informing people about astronomy and space in an imaginative and entertaining manner....View more

Wednesday, September 10, 2008 This Is - and Isn’t - Your Grandfather’s Science Museum    Update from Jonathan Katz, CEO of Cinnabar, and executive producer of 35,000 square feet of new exhibits for the Kimball Natural History Museum at the new California Academy of Sciences....View more

Friday, August 29, 2008 Giant Tortoises and Museum 2.0: Cinnabar Installation Diary    We’re now completing installation of exhibits on the east side of the Kimball Museum of Natural History at the new California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Those exhibits include “Islands of Evolution,” some 10,000 square feet of displays illustrating Academy research expeditions to Galápagos and Madagascar, while explaining key concepts about evolution and biodiversity....View more

Saturday, August 23, 2008 Museums: More news from the installation front!    Here is the latest entry of Cinnabar’s installation diary, by Jonathan Katz (Executive Director) and Jeannie Lomma (project manager)...View more

Monday, August 11, 2008 Cinnabar Installation Diary: The California Academy of Sciences    Here’s a report from Jonathan Katz in San Francisco, where his company, Cinnabar, is in the process of installing new exhibits at the California Academy of Sciences. This will be a weekly diary for the next several weeks (the new Academy opens Sept. 27).
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Thursday, August 07, 2008 So where are the serpents? Newsletters and missing paintings.    Seems like everyone nowadays has a newsletter. The cinema I take the kids to has one. So does the local kennel. I understand the postman is working on one......View more

Friday, July 18, 2008 Museums: With the Beetles at London's Natural History Museum    Fascinating story in the press this week about a tiny beetle which caused quite a stir at London's Natural History Museum as the 5 year old son of one of the museum's entomologists makes a lunchtime discovery...
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Friday, March 21, 2008 Planetariums and Science Centres. Two New Attractions Debut this Easter    This Easter weekend sees the opening of two brand new attractions, The Australian Museum's permanent dinosaur exhibit and here in the UK, Britains biggest Planetarium.
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Saturday, November 03, 2007 Amusement parks : Welcome to Bemusement, the Blooloop Blog    View the post