Moonstruck Exhibition eclipses expectations
Record numbers of visitors attended Leicester Cathedral for a University-sponsored British Science Week Festival event in the city.
Leicester Cathedral recorded its highest ever number of visitors since the reinterment of Richard III – marking another successful collaboration between the University and the Cathedral, as well as other city partners.
A total of 28,000 visitors attended the Luke Jerram’s Museum of the Moon exhibition which saw a giant moon installed in the Cathedral. Measuring seven metres in diameter, the moon features 120dpi detailed NASA imagery of the lunar surface. At an approximate scale of 1:500,000, each centimetre of the internally lit spherical sculpture represents 5km of the moon’s surface.
The exhibition also received outstanding attention across social media. Posts relating to the moon in the Cathedral reached 65,493 people on Twitter, creating 81,923 impressions on different Twitter streams. So far, the hashtag #MuseumoftheMoon has been used 7,204 times on Instagram, with many members of the public standing underneath the moon to take a photo, demonstrating the huge scale and intricate detail of the exhibition. Across the University’s Facebook pages, an in-house video produced reached 8,700 views and was shared over 80 times, driving conversation across the City Centre.
In addition, there was widespread media coverage of the event, on TV, Radio and newspapers.
Watch a video interview with Professor Turi King about the Museum of the Moon:
Leicester Cathedral, the Highcross Shopping Centre, the National Space Centre, Abbey Pumping Station, Newarke House, the Richard III Visitor Centre, BBC Radio Leicester and the University of Leicester were among the venues for the events.