Ahead of the school summer holidays Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery (BMAG) is releasing more free tickets for Dippy on Tour: A Natural History Adventure. Dippy on Tour is brought to you by the Natural History Museum in partnership with the Garfield Weston Foundation.
The popular exhibition, which showcases the 292-piece skeleton cast from the Natural History Museum, has already had over 75,000 visitors in Birmingham.
Thousands of extra free tickets have been released which can be booked online at birminghammuseums.org.uk/bmag/whats-on/dippy-on-tour-a-natural-history-adventure.
Booking tickets is recommended to guarantee entry, but walk up spaces will also be available. Visitors without pre-booked tickets are advised they may need to wait during busier times. Gurminder Kenth, Museum Manager at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery said: “The people of Birmingham have truly taken Dippy to their hearts and it has been amazing to see so many visitors enjoying the exhibition.
“This is an once-in-a-lifetime chance to see Dippy in Birmingham and we want to make sure as many people as possible get the chance to visit. That’s why we are releasing extra free tickets for the rest of the run and we can’t wait to welcome more even more dino fans over the summer.”
The region has been welcoming Dippy to Birmingham. Giant Diplodocus footprints were placed on walkways near the museum for the exhibition launch by regional sponsors Paradise Birmingham.
A trail of topiary dinosaurs has also been placed around the city centre by Retail Bid Birmingham. Visitors can pick up a map at BMAG and continue their prehistoric journey around the city to track down all 10 topiary dinosaurs, learning fun facts as they go.
Cadbury World has also celebrated Dippy’s stay in Birmingham by creating a chocolate Diplodocus weighing in at almost 30kg – the equivalent of 667 bars of standard Cadbury Dairy Milk. The creation, which hatched out of a giant chocolate egg, took two chocolatiers two days to bring to life and can now be seen at BMAG.
As well as seeing the famous dino, visitors to the exhibition can learn about how Dippy might have been the end of the line for herbivorous dinosaurs but the meat-eating dinosaurs continued to evolve – birds are dinosaurs. Bringing Birmingham’s colourful bird collection back to BMAG for the first time in nearly 20 years, the exhibition showcases the amazing diversity of modern birds and how they evolved to become one of the world’s most successful groups of animals.
Throughout the summer there will also be fun Dippy related activities at the museum to enjoy. There’s the Dippy family room with the chance to dress up and play, the Dino Dig where children can have a go at being a palaeontologist, curator’s tour, crafts and trails. And there is even a Dino Children’s Menu in the Edwardian Tearooms to keep little ones fuelled.
The fun isn’t just for kids, with activities and events for adults including dinosaur and tote bag printing and a range of thought-provoking talks. There’s even a chance to have a cocktail with Dippy at an afterhours event on 26th July.
