A great success in beautiful sunshine: The Museumsmeilenfest 2023
Guided tour behind the scenes at the Museum Mile Festival in German Sign Language (DGS) – Dirk Rohwedder, employee of the LIB and himself hearing impaired, during the introduction and presentation of the museum in DGS before the tours start in small groups. The guided tours in DGS were made financially possible by Aktion Mensch. © LIB, Meusemann
Family festival with live music in the park, science slam, behind-the-scenes tours & hands-on activities at Museum Koenig Bonn: around 7,500 visitors young and old enjoyed this year’s Museumsmeilenfest on the first weekend in June in bright sunshine.
An extensive stage programme with live music from Irish music to African choir sounds to jazz & soul, workshops and many hands-on activities provided fun and games for young and old on Saturday and Sunday. Scientists offered insights into their work with the opportunity to ask personal questions. Visitors were guided into the “sacred halls” of the scientific collections and through the history of the museum or could simply enjoy a good time in the Museum Park.
Hands-on activities by cooperation partners such as NABU, the Chocolate Museum Cologne, the Nettersheim Nature Centre, the Bonn Working Group for Bat Protection and many others rounded off the programme. The För-Tax project – promoting taxonomic knowledge as a basis for nature conservation – inspired with its actions for more nature conservation. Over a thousand “FlowerPowerBalls”, i.e. seed balls with native plant seeds, were handmade under the guidance of visitors. In this way, everyone together made a small contribution to making our environment a little greener and supporting the local diversity of insects.
The Alexander-Koenig-Gesellschaft e.V. (AKG) promoted its tasks and interests in support of the Museum Koenig: the raffle was very popular, with the proceeds of which we want to continue to improve our exhibitions and our museum education. “Lust auf Schmuck” donated part of the proceeds from the charity sale of necklaces, rings and earrings.
On Saturday evening, a festival atmosphere spread through the park: the band “Woodstuff” played “wooden music at its best”, soul and funk fans got their money’s worth with the band “Plenty Forty” and their groovy brass sections. On Sunday, the stage was set for the Science Slam by our researchers Alina Schüller, Annika Mozer, Vera Rduch and Karsten Stehr.
After almost a decade, we were able – thanks to the financial support of Aktion Mensch and the AKG – to offer numerous guided tours in German Sign Language for the deaf. More than 100 participants from all over Germany were thrilled by the “behind-the-scenes” look into the collections and exhibition areas. Even signers learned new technical terms in sign language on this occasion as part of the research and collection work at Museum Koenig Bonn.
