What’s wrong with the Millennium Dome?

You would have had to try very hard to avoid the Dome in recent months. Before Christmas, we had intense coverage of the race to complete the exhibition, and from the opening we had a barrage of coverage asking "Is it any good?" I wanted to go, and my opportunity came in January when one of our senior managers asked for an exhibitions person to accompany him on a tour.

We arrived at 9.30 to be greeted by hordes of yellow-jacketed hosts. This being a Monday in term time, the staff outnumbered visitors until later in the day. The Dome proper opened at 10.00 but, in response to press criticism of queues, early starters could have a 'preview' of the Body Zone.

We sailed straight in to the Body, which consists of a series of themed rooms (the best of which is the giant heart, beating in response to what the body experiences). You walk through these rooms fairly quickly which, although not very satisfying, is probably the only way to deal with the anticipated volume of visitors. It is all over in ten minutes, and you emerge in a secondary exhibition area at the Body's feet, called "Explore".

"Explore" is both interesting and infuriating. It has some nice short films, and a couple of nice object displays, but the interactivity was very disappointing. Exhibits in big projects are almost always left until it is too late to develop them properly, and usually after most of the money has been spent. The interactive exhibits in Explore, which range from a treadmill showing the relative benefits of different sorts of exercise to a high-security vein-scanner, were all in need of revision. The BIG Event often has discussions about the benefits of evaluation, but Explore is a great case study of the pitfalls of not allowing time or money to find out what people will actually do. (A few days after our visit I saw press articles saying that "most" exhibits were broken. I suspect that not all of them were, they just didn't work as the visitors expected).

Once the rest of the exhibition opened, we rushed around to try and see every zone, as well as the central show. The zones are quite varied: in tone, in style and in quality. The Play zone was excellent on the day we visited, but I dread to think what it would be like on a busy day. Most of its activities have been acquired from elsewhere - many of the digital games are art pieces seen previously at events like Ars Electronica in Germany, although by much smaller audiences. This approach works quite well, and creates an environment that is quite different from a traditional interactive centre, while not quite a video arcade.

We toured the zones in anticlockwise-order: Body, Play, Shared Ground, Journey, Living Island, Home Planet, Self Portrait, Talk, Faith, Mind, Rest, Money, Work and Learning, stopping to see the show in mid-afternoon. Some of the zones are very preachy (step forward Living Island), while some are afraid to say anything (Faith). In fact, most zones make a reasonable attempt to display their subject matter, even though in some cases an exhibition is not really the appropriate medium. Things that are easy to display, like transport, have produced very good zones: the Journey Zone on its own would form the basis of a good transport museum. The harder concepts, like "Learning", have made for less-successful displays.

So, what IS wrong with the Dome? Well the short answer is "not as much as you might think". I visited on a quiet day after the initial rush (floor staff told me that the attendance that day was around 5000, or 20% capacity). As with all new exhibitions, quite a bit was broken, having had its first true test. This is nothing an experienced exhibition developer wouldn't have expected. Likewise, the low attendances in January shouldn't have been a shock - indeed, attracting 364,200 visitors to anything in January is quite an achievement (unless you are aiming for 620,000!). The ill feeling is because this all seems to have come as a surprise, at least to those at the top of the organisation (and their political masters).

At least things are changing. We will never know whether the rise in visitors is down to the arrival of 'PY' Gerbeau, or the arrival of February half-term. What is more impressive is the way the organisation reacts on the ground. The Visitor Services department are already on their fourth generation visitor guide, as they have corrected problems with maps and instructions as they are found. How many other large organisations could react so quickly?

The criticism of the Dome has had many causes, not all of it justified. It was probably inevitable that a project that size would see a clash of many big egos (from project managers and designers on the inside to the politicians outside). Now the development is over, the true test will be how visitors are looked after. The front of house team are very professional, and could yet save the Dome’s reputation.

Newsletter Spring 2000 Contents

New exhibitions > Opening dates for UK exhibitions | New Yorkshire Centre | Young builders | Number exhibition | What's wrong with the Millennium Dome?

News > Canadian Director for Eureka | Design in education Week | The 'Race against time' show pack | Indo-UK Science Festival | From the editor | From the chair

BIG Annual Report 1999 > Chair's Report | Treasurers Report | Membership Report