THE NIGHT OF THE MUSEUMS EVENT AND DEVELOPING NEW MUSEUM AUDIENCE – FACTS AND MISAPPREHENSIONS ON A CULTURAL EVENT

The Night of the Museums (originally Long Night of Museums), an event held in the Republic of Croatia since 2005, is continuously setting up new records – the number of cities and museums involved in the project records the continuous increase, along with the rising number of visitors to the museums, heritage and cultural institutions in the few hours of the event. In 2013 the Night of the Museums project involved 226 museums, galleries and cultural institutions. According to the Museum Documentation Center’s Registry of museums, galleries and collections in the Republic of Croatia, there are 281 museums at the state’s territory. It is obvious that there is a tendency for the inclusion of all Croatian museum institutions in the Night of the Museums project. The event is an excellent promotion of museum activities and also the promotion of the project itself. The question remains how much individual museums themselves can highlight the quality of their programs in this mass event. Also, a continuos increase in the number of visitors to the Night of the Museums does not necessarily create a new museum audience. This paper provides an overview of the success of the Night of the Museums project, and seeks to identify the extent to which these events contributed to the development of the recognition of museums themselves, but also the creation of a new museum audience.