Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum Welcomes Visitors Back From Monday 25 May

Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira will open its doors to the public on Monday 25 May. Visitors will again be able explore the Museum’s galleries and experience its new exhibition Wildlife Photographer of the Year from the Natural History Museum in London, which has been extended for a limited time.

Ahead of the reopening date the Museum is focussed on putting in place the Government Alert Level 2 guidelines. As a result, visiting the Museum will be a slightly different experience as we work to keep visitors safe as they explore our taonga and galleries.

“We look forward to welcoming Aucklanders and visitors to the city back into the Museum when our doors reopen” says Auckland Museum Chief Executive Dr David Gaimster, “and we are encouraged by our communities saying that they are looking forward to visiting us again.”

On reopening, to ensure the safety of the Museum’s visitors and staff, measures such as contactless, controlled entry limiting the numbers of people inside the Museum in at one time and one-way traffic flows through the building will be implemented. A digital entry system will provide contact tracing as required by government.

Strict hygiene precautions and physical distancing of at least two metres between visitors not known to each other will be monitored and applied.

“Our visitors, staff, volunteers and communities can be confident that their health and wellbeing remains our key priority” says Dr Gaimster. “As a result, and as they would expect, there will be some changes to what the public experience on their immediate return.”

Together with the Kai Room, the popular Weird and Wonderful and Volcanoes galleries will not open at Level 2 due to the high touch interactive nature of these spaces. This is a temporary safety measure and the Museum hopes to return to regular operations as soon as possible.

All school visits, public programmes and onsite events will continue to be suspended until further notice to ensure the safety of Museum visitors, people and communities.

“We are confident these new measures will ensure the Museum is a safe place to visit,” Dr Gaimster says. “We plan to open safely to the communities we serve and look forward to providing a familiar and free place for Aucklanders to visit.”

Over the Level 4 and 3 lockdowns, the Museum continued to operate behind the scenes undertaking the full range of its non-public facing activities such as caring for collections and taonga, research, digital and online initiatives, preparation of exhibitions and development of public programmes, planning and conservation.

Auckland Museum at Home webpage will continually be updated with new videos, articles and activities. This online hub is filled with stories, activities, videos and puzzles for the whole family to enjoy for free.

Visitors are invited to keep coming back to see what’s new and follow Auckland Museum on social channels for updates.

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