Once a month, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) hosts a 19+ after-hours event from 7:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. that allows you to experience the exhibits in a whole new way.
Each month brings a different theme, along with varying musical artists and food vendors. This makes the ROM After Dark sound like the closest thing to the Night at The Museum franchise.
As a fan of the ROM, and someone who has always been curious about ROM After Dark, I paid the $40 ticket to see what the hype was about.
Walking in, I didn’t know what to expect besides the free drink coupon that came with the ticket and the theme for the night, which was “Fashion 4 Life.” Granted, myself and my friend arrived a few hours into the event, but immediately walking in we were a little confused by the atmosphere.
After getting our free drink from the bar, we made a quick lap around the exhibits that were open on the ground floor, and up the stairs to the other permanent galleries that were open for the night.
After spending 25 minutes seeing the open-access exhibits, we walked into one of the rooms at the back of the museum, which displayed a runway and projector showcasing Indigenous fashion, with benches lining the walls. While it was evident that we had missed the fashion show due to arriving late, it was confusing as to why there wasn’t anything else that kept the room entertaining as the night went on. It seemed that this room, along with many others, functioned as lounges with bars for people to hang out in, despite there being no exhibits to view while sitting in them.
Exhausting our options, we went to every floor open to find anything related to the theme of the night. After getting in the elevator up to the fifth-floor lounge to seek out “Paper Doll Fashion Activation,” which was running all evening, we were greeted with pleasant live music and the realization that this “event” was people sitting at the lounge tables colouring sheets of dolls in dresses.
Walking back into the main room that was functioning as a dance floor, we watched the artists on stage, and the sparse number of people standing and listening to them perform. It was here we realized that many of the promoted activities on the program were the permanent displays that are open to the public every day and year-round at the ROM. This included the hands-on galleries WonderWorks and Biodiversity, and a large number of the activities on the program were the different artists performing for the evening — which is debatable whether it is enough to stick around for.
If the night had included more of the theme it promoted or left more of the museum open, I believe the experience would have been much more positive.
Perhaps my experience is credited to arriving late, and maybe even the theme for the night not being a strong one to speak on; it was quite disappointing that guests were paying $40 for a museum experience that was more limiting than a regular visit during the day.
Normal admission to the ROM is usually no more than $26, with full access to the museum, and on Tuesdays, admission for post-secondary students is completely free. With that said, the After Dark event did include your cost of a coat check and a drink within the ticket price.
Overall, it was a fun experience to get dressed up and see the museum at night, but not worth it for such a limiting museum experience. I don’t doubt that each theme for ROM After Dark will bring a different crowd and different experience, so I can’t completely give the experience a thumbs down, but for now, I’ll be sticking to ROM during daylight.