Design Museum now available for exclusive daytime hire widens scope for events and brand activations

The Design Museum is now available for daytime, exclusive use which allows full access to the entire museum during the day and evening, including the iconic triple-height atrium.

As organisations seek to heighten their brand storytelling through new formats and forums which connect with their consumers and reach new audiences, the Design Museum has come to the fore as the go to venue for brand activations, experiential events, and exhibitions. With exclusive use daytime hire now available, the museum can accommodate larger briefs with more complex and creative installs, as well as events requiring the privacy of an entire takeover.

Previous brand activations and exhibitions included last year’s Fred Perry exhibition. Conceived by Fred Perry and curated by the Design Museum, Fred Perry: A British Icon opened in June 2022. The exhibition celebrated 70 years of the Fred Perry polo shirt and its legacy with the tennis champions who inspired it and global tribes who continue to wear and identify with it.

Other projects included the inaugural display of The OAK Collection, a showcase of a one-of-a-kind assortment of watches, and Van Cleef & Arpels: The Art of Movement, a month-long exhibition in Autumn 2022 which featured almost a hundred creations from Van Clef & Arpels’ patrimonial collection, numerous archive documents and lender masterpieces. This exhibition was designed to illustrate the French High Jewelry Maison’s constant quest to impart movement into precious materials. 

By hosting these activations at the Design Museum, brands can draw a new customer base and greater numbers than would normally have been achieved via a shop front activation. The Design Museum has an annual footfall of over 500k and a social media reach in excess of 4 million.  

Livia Puggini, Head of Commercial Hire & Events at the Design Museum, comments: “Being able to offer exclusive use of the museum during the day has been a long-term ambition of the events team as we look to maximise the museum’s potential to host full-scale brand activations and experiential events. Brands are increasingly looking for new formats to connect and engage their consumers and the museum is the perfect setting in which to do this. At the museum, we can offer a full service to clients from the creation of an initial idea to design production and a curatorial strategy for exhibitions.”

The Design Museum offers seven different spaces for events and activations, including its showcase spaces the contemporary, blank canvas Helene and Johannes Huth Gallery, and the triple height atrium with views above the original hyperbolic paraboloid roof. To ensure a sensitive balance between public and private access, exclusive daytime hire is limited throughout the year.

The Design Museum operates as a registered charity and all funds generated through commercial hire go towards supporting the museum’s vision for everyone to understand the value of design.