Secret Museum Dokkum ARG

April 12, 2011 | General

While working on our last ARG we were visited by Jacob Bosma, who’s the PR-guy for at the Dokkum “het Admiraliteitshuis” (the admiralty house) museum.

We talked with him about the QR codes and how he used them at the museum. We showed him some of the things possible with ARG’s, amongst which the short ARG “Mime Academy”. This piqued his interest and gave him some ideas for a small treasure hunt through the museum he was working on at the time.

Kuno went to have a look at that treasure hunt and gave some tips and pointers on how Jacob could improve on the concept. After this Jacob asked him if we could take a look at the museum and make a more permanent ARG quest through the museum. This would show most of the top items that are displayed at the museum and give the visitor a fun and memorable time.

The museum’s staff noticed that the people visiting the museum don’t seem to stay for very long, possibly because they don’t know where to go or simply they need to be entertained more. Either way an ARG could just be what they need.

As it is a small museum it has the ability to do experimental things on small scale without taking too much of a risk. As such it’s a lot of fun to be able to help them create a new experimental experience.

Most of their info plates have been replaced with QR codes that direct you to a mobile website which gives you some information and a link to things like Wikipedia articles about the subject. By doing this they found a way of giving information to people that they can also take home as the URLs collected stay in their phones.

To see what we wanted to do with the ARG we made a visit to the museum to see what we could use and do there. One of the things that stood out to us was the part of the museum about Bonifatius, where they first tell about the life and time of this crusading holy man, and around the corner an impressive audiovisual installation about the death of Bonifatius that took place in Dokkum. The first thing that came to mind to try to connect the museum in a more coherent way, resting on the shoulders of Bonifatius’ story: displaying the effects of his life and death on past and modern-day life.

How this is to be achieved still lies in the open but it’s a fun assignment that gives us the chance to try something totally different. We have a defined playing field and have only one task: give the visitors an entertaining and memorable experience. Plus be innovative so they’ll be able to market this to other museums.

We’ve got a chance to do something that does not come by to often: just entertain people. One of the most fun assignments we could hope for. There will be more about this project later on, so stay tuned.

While lunching and walking through the museum Sinne has made a Timelapse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPPyyWC7axI