10 minute read
Hot Properties - Science Museum
Hot Bringing science to life
The Science Museum, one of London’s biggest tourist attractions and the home of human ingenuity, has taken its mission on the road, with its Science Museum: The Live Stage Show enthralling audiences across the country. Resident science geek Rachael Simpson-Jones sat down with Amy Harbour, head of Licensing and Commercial Partnerships at Science Museum Group, to find out what the show means for the museum’s licensing efforts and why experimentation is key to its partnerships.
The moment our Teams call starts, it’s apparent that Amy loves science. An enthusiastic, engaging speaker who gesticulates nearly as much as she smiles while talking about the Science Museum and its work, it’s become something of a running joke among her peers that she should be on stage along with the rest of the presenters in Science Museum: The Live Stage Show. Currently touring the UK and marking the museum’s first licensed stage show, the family-friendly experience is exciting, action-packed and high-energy: we’re talking explosions, fire, loud noises and more – and covers a range of physics, chemistry and engineering topics designed to inspire the inventors, engineers and scientists of tomorrow.
The London-based Science Museum is part of the Science Museum Group, which also counts the National Railway Museum (York), National Science and Media Museum (Bradford), Science and Industry Museum (Manchester) and Locomotion (AKA: National Railway Museum) in Shildon among its sites. Being spread across the UK is an important part of the group’s DNA: after all, orders of magnitude more people live outside of London than in it, and the group firmly believes everyone should be able to access the learning opportunities it offers regardless of where they live. It was for the same reason that the Live Stage Show was created, which is visiting theatres everywhere from Southampton and Cardiff to the Isle of Man and Aberdeen throughout 2024.
“The Live Stage Show is an extension of our Wonderlab gallery,” Amy tells me. “Currently accessible at three of our museums, Wonderlab is an incredibly exciting and interactive learning experience that spans seven zones, such as Matter, Light, Mass, Sound and Space. It’s incredibly popular with children visiting the galleries in London, Bradford and York with their school or family. We’re unbelievably proud to offer Wonderlab in multiple locations across the UK, so the Live Stage Show felt like a natural evolution for us in terms of deepening our connection with families across the country.”
The Science Museum has partnered with professional theatre promoter Mark Thompson Productions on the show, which Amy says is almost as passionate as getting kids into science as the museum itself is. The three-year deal gives the group a way of reaching more families than ever before as well as a way to expand its brand far beyond the Science Museum, which itself welcomes an average of 2.5m visitors every year. It’s also a chance for existing and potential licensees, retailers and manufacturers to experience first-hand the impact the museum has on kids and families and gain a deeper understanding of how those in the audience end up becoming consumers of Science Museum products.
The show has been a resounding hit with families and theatres alike since it launched in February 2024. The fact there’s been more than 60 dates (and counting) announced for the show throughout 2024 is testament to the ongoing demand for tickets: over 10,000 have been sold to date. Happily, the Science Museum is set on continuing the stage show far beyond its current three year deal with Mark Thompson: indeed, Amy describes her hopes for a ‘marathon’ run of shows beyond the 2026 timeline.
“In my past life, I worked in children’s television and for BBC Science,” explains Amy, when asked why she cares so much about getting kids into science. (Suddenly, her colleagues’ joking insistence she become a part-time theatre performer makes much more sense). “As a kid, growing up in Halifax, West Yorkshire, having access to the National Science and Media Museum was so important to me. Being shown the world of science and its possibilities, and the message that I could be part of it – that anyone can – was incredibly formative for me. Now, alongside my colleagues, I work hard to represent diversity within STEM and celebrate the stories that matter most. We’ve got Amy Johnson’s aeroplane on display, and Helen Sharman OBE’s spacesuit – she was the first British astronaut. Our curators, and their collections, make what might otherwise be invisible, visible, and in doing so, we hope to encourage everyone who wants to pursue a career in science to do just that.”
Here, Amy goes on to share the loveliest anecdote, which neatly reflects Science Museum’s purpose. It’s the story of an overheard conversation between a parent and a member of museum staff, after the family in question had spent a happy day at the Science Museum. The child, the story goes, had arrived at the museum that morning wanting to be a princess – but when they left, they wanted to be an astronaut.
“By the time kids leave the museum, an incredible new world should have been revealed to them,” enthuses Amy. “And they will know that they can be part of this exciting new world and the future that comes with it.” Somewhat paradoxically, the museum is both world-leading when it comes to its collections of historical scientific artefacts yet positioned at the cutting edge of science and technological progress. The recently opened Energy Revolution: The Adani Green Energy Gallery, for example, looks to the future of the renewable, clean and sustainable energy solutions vital to mitigating the impacts of anthropogenic climate change, while the ‘AI: Friend or Foe to the Design Industry?’ event taking place this month asks whether artificial intelligence poses an existential threat to designers, or opens up a new world of creative opportunities. Placing this knowledge at the fingertips of the people who will be leading from the front on these globally relevant issues is crucial.
Much like the field of scientific study itself, the Science Museum’s approach to brand licensing is experimental, open-minded and collaborative. The museum’s licensing programme to date has been very successful: in Toys, Clementoni’s Science Museum range of STEM kits is a particular highlight. Hornby, meanwhile, is a top licensee for the group’s railway museums, having helped celebrate the centenary year of the iconic Flying Scotsman in 2023. Since joining the museum five years ago, and the licensing team in 2023, Amy and her colleagues have been focused on bringing a fresh approach to the programme, working with new licensees such as Funtime to apply the museum’s educational experience to the company’s range of slime and fibre optic lamps. She is keen for Science Museum licensed product to really mean something – if a child has come away from playing with a science kit without learning anything about the ‘why’ behind how it works, what’s the point?
Anyone interested in working with the Science Museum on branded products, be they consumer products or something else, is invited to get in contact with Amy and her team to sound out how their ideas might work in practice. That goes for those completely new to licensing as well as licensees who’ve been doing it for years: help navigating the licensing sector is on hand for anyone who requires it.
“The brand licensing team is very open to having conversations that may or may not go somewhere, but if you don’t investigate each and every opportunity on offer then you’ll never find out where they could lead,” Amy notes. “Partnerships have to work for both parties of course, which is where our added value comes in. You might have a lovely product; now let us bring the science to life on-pack and in-play. By way of an example, Funtime has used our new 2024 style guide to explain how fibre optic lights work, which has taken its lamps to the next level and offered consumers even better value for money.”
As an educational establishment, the Science Museum’s brand licensing team is supported by a raft of curators and expert conservators, as well as gallery developers and the exhibition team, ready and able to lend their knowledge to product development conversations. Within the national museum landscape, the Science Museum is an undisputed leader in children's education. In fact, I’m told, of the 16 museums funded by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport, the Science Museum has historically led in visits by visitors under the age of 18 and in formal education. School and college groups know the museum is a unique place to visit, one that immerses young learners in surroundings you simply don’t often get to enjoy. The museum’s learning teams have, for decades, applied themselves single-mindedly to providing fun, hand son learning experiences for tomorrow’s inventors, engineers and scientists, and this runs like a seam of precious metal throughout everything the museum does – licensing included.
“In a great licensing partnership, everyone brings their best to the table, and combining the different areas of expertise and thinking creates something truly magical,” Amy adds. “And we’re always looking at ways of enhancing partnerships, offering what no other licensor can. Licensees are welcome to do on-site product photography at the museum, for example, using elements of our collections or galleries that will help their product really stand out. There’s so much we can do for our partners.”
Throughout our conversation, Amy comes back time and again to one crucial point: that the Science Museum, and its Live Stage Show, is all about making science fun. She highlights the museum’s Technicians gallery, opened at the end of 2022, in which kids can weld parts of a rollercoaster, work behind the scenes of a Marvel superhero movie and try their hand at creating pharmaceuticals (safe ones, of course) – things kids might not necessarily even see as science. By shining a light on the opportunities presented by the sector in a novel, exciting way, kids can leave the museum armed with the knowledge they need to carve their own path in a field of their choosing. At its heart, the licensing programme aims to do the same thing, by inviting kids into the world of science and wonder, along whichever avenue they may follow.
“It’s an unusual way of thinking, perhaps, but I don’t feel that the Science Museum should be the one leading the licensing programme,” Amy finishes. “If we set ourselves defined targets for our programme, then those are all we’ll ever achieve. What I want to create is a really successful, wide-ranging and deep licensing programme based upon numerous beneficial partnerships with licensees from all sectors. Where that journey takes us is unknown, but the whole team is open to anything. This means we’ll be able to achieve things with our partners that we’d never be able to alone. The Science Museum is here to bring out the best in its partners and vice versa. I’d urge all interested parties to join us on this journey of discovery, think big, and get ready to have their mind blown as we take science to kids and families in entirely new, unexpected ways.”
