Posted by On March 23rd, 2018 I attended my first-ever (and probably only) Nature Nocturne party at the Canadian Museum of Nature. When I first heard of these monthly Friday-night licensed DJ museum parties my interest was certainly piqued. I’m a museum lover, a music lover, and an alcohol lover – what could possibly be finer? The only real question is what took me so long?
I guess what took me so long is I wasn’t sure what to expect, and when I decided to think about it and expect something, what I expected was a sparsely attended, overpriced cocktail party with quiet techno beats subtly permeating the experience. Which didn’t quite meet my go-out-of-your-way-to-attend-one-of-these-things standards. But my mantra is “if you don’t go you won’t know” so I went, and whatever I was expecting, I sure was wrong.
The event started at 8pm. The museum is right around the corner from my house so I strolled over around 8:30 and was surprised to find loud, hi-energy music being pumped through big speakers set up outside the building when I approached the entrance. Stepping in I could immediately see that the place was packed – I’m tellin’ you it was packed – with a very young, hip-looking crowd that was dressed to the nines. I mean people were wall-to-wall. Every girl seemed to be wearing the same tight black dress, every guy was dressed sharp as a thumbtack, the music was blasting from every direction, and nobody looked like they were any more than half my age.
Fortunately there were bars set up everywhere; there must have been more than a dozen popped-up watering holes throughout the museum. I grabbed myself a beer and another and did a walkabout.
It took about a half-hour before I saw a single soul that was even close to my age. I had just turned fifty human-years a few months before and to be honest this was probably the first time in my life I genuinely felt a distinct generation gap. I felt old and I felt like an outsider. Not that I cared much about it, but there was a distinct oddness about the experience. Ah well, I grabbed myself another beer and kept on.
The Museum of Nature is big on dinosaurs. It houses one of the world’s greatest collections of original Dino skeletons, and the theme of the evening was centred on our extinct cousins. One room had a mechanical bull set up with a rubber dinosaur’s head taped onto it . Fortunately the lineup to give it a whirl was big enough to prevent me from taking a turn, doubtlessly saving myself from an injury borne out of elderly bravado.
Another room featured a sandbox lit up with cool psychedelic lights. It was an interactive mock-fossil hunt and people really seemed to be digging it. One of my favourites was the excellent dude-in-a-Dino-suit who went from room to room taking over all the dancefloors.
When I paid my entrance fee I had paid extra for the “butterfly experience” which I assumed was going to be an all-you-could-eat sort of thing. Boy, was I was mistaken! In fact, the extra fee allowed me to walk through a butterfly enclosure that had been temporarily set up in the basement of the museum. So I finished off my beer (no alcohol inside the actual exhibits) and spent twenty minutes inside the ultra-humid enclosure, chasing and being chased by a countless massive flying caterpillars. One big fellah momentarily landed on m’lady’s head, but that was the closest either of us got to a free meal.
As the event wore on the party just kept growing. By 11pm the DJ in the main stairwell had ‘em packed in like jumping sardines. I really couldn’t believe the night was so well-attended but after experiencing it I wasn’t at all surprised. The organizers clearly do an amazing job appealing to the legal age young ‘un crowd and have managed to make what many would generally consider a boring space into an environment that was incredibly engaging.
The bottom line is that Nature Nocturne is a resounding success and despite the fact that it vastly exceeded my expectations in virtually every way I don’t think I’ll go back. It seems strange, but it looks like I’m getting too old for this hip-hop museum thing.
Todd Man Out 