Seattle’s EMP Museum

Before I visited Seattle I knew some of the “must see” places to visit like the Space Needle and the Pike Place Market, but I had never heard of the EMP Museum (now called Museum of PopCulture), until a few friends told me I should definitely visit it as well.

I played the flute for maybe 5 months in grade 6 but aside from that I don’t have a musical note in my body. I listen to mostly popular music or music that is suggested to me by others and think the spoons are an extremely unique instrument. As you can guess my thoughts about visiting the EMP Museum was slightly “meh”, however my thoughts after leaving the EMP Museum were “Woooo OMG! Everyone should go there!”

I was busier than expected while visiting Seattle and my trip to the EMP Museum kept getting delayed, then one afternoon after taking the Underground Tour I made my way to the museum, it was around 5:30pm. I walked up to the museum nestled next to the Space Needle taking photos of its odd exterior and wandered around. I stop to read the info placquered outside and then I saw it. Opening times 10am to 5pm.

It was CLOSED!

 

I had finally made it there and couldn’t get in. I tweeted my frustration, it seems like a lot of things in Seattle close early (at least during the winter months). Boo.

(Note they responded to my tweet quickly – that made me less mad. Good Social Media team = me happy.)

That almost sealed the deal for me that I wasn’t meant to go or knew it might not be for me but I gave it another try that Thursday first thing in the morning and I am glad I went back.

#FACTS The EMP Museum opened in 2000 is also known as the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Project and Hall of fame or EMP|SFM with the Science Fiction part opening in 2004.

I bought my ticket, checked my coat, and started up the stairs for the Nirvana memorabilia exhibit. Everything you can imagine about Nirvana was here from videos of the band, home photos, articles of Kurt Cobain’s clothes to even one of their own “Moon Man” Award from the MTV Music Awards. There were even pieces of broken guitars smashed by Kurt. Very cool to see and definitely something for die hard Nirvana fans full of Teen Spirit…. hehe

(low lighting makes things look nice in the museum but pixelish for me sorry)

I wandered around came across this crazy tree of guitars.

Which lead me into the Guitar gallery that had guitars from the first prototype to its evolution into being electric and on. I’m pretty sure they had every guitar ever made in here, all lit up pretty like enough to make even a bass player smile.

The seats in the guitar gallery are shaped like guiatr picks!

When I left the Guitar Gallery I couldn’t help but be distracted and lured into the Sky Chruch which houses the largest indoor LED screen in the world. A wicked concert venue that constantly has concerts and various music docs playing on its gynormous screen. I would definitely like to have one of these in my house.

After browsing one of the gift shops I inquired where the Science Fiction part of the museum started and was sent through the Sky Church to the other side and this is where I got really excited and the film nerd in me came out.

An Avatar Exhibition!

All the information you could ever want from the James Cameron film Avatar could be found here.

Did you know that “unobtanium” is actually a real thing? Well its more a figure of speech I suppose.

To find out more about EMP and be excited as I was about the Avatar Exhibition stay tuned for Seattle’s EMP Museum Part 2!

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