Peterborough party animals!  

What would make your party go with a swing? A Martian war machine? Some medieval catering? A pantomime horse perhaps? Or how about some life-size dinosaurs? Peterborough Museum’s new venue and prop hire service makes all this and more possible. The Moment talked to Heritage Development Officer Rachel Walmsley about what’s on offer for party people of all ages...  

FIRST AND FOREMOST, YOU’RE OFFERING VENUES FOR HIRE UNDER THE HEADING ‘UNIQUE SPACES FOR SPECIAL OCCASIONS’ – HOW DID THIS IDEA COME ABOUT?
We get a lot of families coming to the Museum for our events and activities – especially during half term – and having a great time, and we’ve had a lot of people commenting that this would be fantastic for a birthday party. This got us thinking! There are a lot of places you can have birthday parties in Peterborough, but we are kind of a unique place for that. Vivacity do birthday parties already – at sports centres, for example – so we’re basically building on this, and tweaking slightly to make it unique to us. We already have our acitivity room at the Museum, which is a fantastic space for parties, but then we have the whole of the rest of the building – and because Vivacity manage other sites there’s Flag Fen and Longthorpe Tower too.

If your party is that good, you might want to go back in time and do it all over again…

SO, IF I WERE SOMEONE WANTING TO HAVE A CHILDREN’S BIRTHDAY PARTY AT ONE OF THESE VENUES, HOW WOULD IT WORK?
We’re calling them Adventure Hunter parties, so they could be for any occasion, not just for birthdays. It’s completely flexible, with us doing as much or as little as you want. You can hire our room on a Saturday – straight venue hire, just like you’d hire a village hall – for about £65, and come in, do your own catering. We can give you downloadable, printable invitiations and a trail for kids to go around the building if you want to do that. But then we’re also offering a few themed packages, which come with a party host to lead the event, craft activities, games, themed party packs and other fun things around the building. We can provide everything, including the catering, or you can bring your own – it’s completely up to you how you do it.

WHAT ARE THE ADVENTURE HUNTER PACKAGES AVAILABLE SO FAR?
There’s Dino Disco, which makes use of the activity room and I think speaks for itself! Under the Sea, which builds on our fantastic collection of marine reptiles, which is very popular with kids. Knights and Princesses, which we can also adapt to any ideas that parents themselves may want to bring to it. Then also there will be the opportunity for parties at Flag Fen during its open season. We’ll have pirates, using the dig pits to dig for treasure, Nature Detectives, which highlights the wildlife of the site with bug hunting and other activities, and Time Travellers, which allows you to explore a variety of themes, with various crafts from various time periods. That could build on a particular period of history that the kids like, for example, and will include storytelling in the roundhouse. And if you want to hold a big summer party or family reunion but don’t have the space, come and have it at Flag Fen!

WHAT ABOUT LONGTHORPE TOWER AND THE NEW PRIESTAGE VAULTS?
We will be making Priestgate Vaults available for corporate or private party hire – but that will have an age limit of over 8s only, as it’s a more restricted space. And yes, there’s Longthorpe Tower too. There are also a few restrictions with that because it’s a Grade 1 listed building, but we’re currently working with a caterer and would really like to do some medieval or medieval-stye banqueting out there – very intimate, just about 15 people or so, perhaps with some medieval musicians to create a really great atmosphere.

What did the Martian say to the Storm Trooper?

SO NOT JUST FOR THE CHILDREN…?
No, not at all. We’re also looking at doing Georgian banqueting in the Museum, because it is a Georgian mansion, after all, and the conference room is ideal for a really special family birthday. We can add bolt-ons to that too, so you could just have a dinner, or we can provide a more historic ambience, with music, perhaps a dinner tour around the Museum, even meeting people from different eras talking about Peterborough’s history. It’s really combining various things that we have already done in the past and do well, but making it more available to people to enjoy for an occasion. And we can work with people and explore whatever they want to do.

A PARTICULARLY EXCITING PART OF THIS NEW SERVICE IS PROP HIRE – TELL US A BIT ABOUT THAT…
So perhaps you’ve got your party or event going on, you have the venue all arranged, perhaps your own venue – but you want to make it that bit more special… Well, we have dinosaurs! If you can’t fit a full-size raptor in your venue, don’t worry, we also have a baby triceratops – and all are suitable for outside use. We also have a 3.5m high tripod Martian war machine, which makes a fantastic centrepiece for a party – you can walk under it, and it has space for speakers and a projector. Then there’s a replica 1960s blue police box, should you have any reason for wanting one of those at your party! These can be for your own venue or brought out for your event at the Museum.

AND A PANTOMIME HORSE?
Because Vivacity also manages the Key Theatre, we have access to the Key Theatre’s costume and prop department, so if anybody out there is doing a school production or theatrical event needing extra costumes or props, they can contact us and see what we’ve got – which includes some excellent Dames outfits, a World War I uniform, Roman armour and a menagerie of panto animals! There’s some scenery as well. For Star Wars fans we also have a genuine stormtrooper costume – the ‘Supreme Edition’! Blaster and boots are not included – the boots had to have holes in for the mannequin when it was exhibited – but hire costs are very reasonable. The stormtrooper, for example, is about £50 for a weekend. Our in-house exhibitions are also now available to hire for touring to other museums – another things were branching out into. There are a lot of museums around the country of about the same size as us, and with budgets being tight it’s useful for them to be able to hire in a complete exhibition – which, in fact, is exactly what we did with the Alice in Wonderland exhibition. It just means that some excellent smaller exhibitions can be seen more widely. That’s really the aim of all of the new hire services – to make everything more available and hands-on to a wider range of people, especially for parties and events. It’s adding something new to the offering Peterborough has, because there hasn’t been a very wide range of places where you can do this.

Adventure Hunter Parties are available to book on Saturdays 11-1 or 2-4. Prices start from £65.

For more information on venue and prop hire, contact: Rachel Walmsley, Heritage Development Officer  or 01733 864663

www.vivacity-peterborough.com