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Festival of Museums launches with an array of exciting events across Scotland

Festival of Museums rolls out across Scotland today (15 May) and will continue until Sunday evening with more than 110 day and night events

The 2015 programme is the biggest since the Festival began in 2011 and is specially curated to give visitors a unique glimpse inside Scotland’s best loved museums and encourage them to engage with culture in unique and hands on ways. Created and co-ordinated by Museums Galleries Scotland (MGS), Festival of Museums encourages Scotland’s museums to provide visitors with the opportunity to enjoy exciting, entertaining and surprising day or night events at museums and galleries over one weekend.

Earlier this week MGS released new research that showed Scotland’s museums and galleries received 28million visitors in 2014 with a contribution of £890m to the Scottish economy, a 20 per cent rise on 2012. Joanne Orr, chief executive of Museums Galleries Scotland, said: “The results illustrate a sector which is developing in line with the National Strategy for Scotland’s museums and galleries and undertaking inspirational work to develop their visitor experience for local, domestic and international visitors. Festival of Museums is about igniting imaginations while celebrating Scotland’s wealth of culture.”

Festival highlights for 2015 include the One Last Fright series of events organised by the University of Edinburgh, an evening of traditional Viking entertainment at the Dumfries Museum as it is transformed into a tavern for one night only, and a family evening out at Aberdeen’s Zoology museum celebrating all things Egyptology with appearances from real life desert animals such as snakes and scorpions.

MGS works in partnership with Culture 24 and Museums at Night and is also working with Voluntary Arts Scotland to tie in to Voluntary Arts Week to develop partnerships between museums and voluntary arts groups across all art forms.

For the full festival programme visit Festival of Museums and to see the The Visitor Attraction Monitor Report visit the Museums Galleries Scotland‘s website.