All you need to know about Takeover Day

For museums and heritage organisations

Are you a museum, gallery, historic house, archive, heritage or cultural venue looking to provide meaningful experiences for children and young people in your organisation? Would you like to be involved with a long-running high profile national initiative? Then Takeover Day is for you.

What is Takeover Day?

Takeover Day is when heritage and cultural sites invite children and young people to take over jobs normally done by adults. Over 5,000 people, from toddlers to 25 year olds, now take part each year. Children and young people take over both front of house roles, such as welcome hosts or tour guides, and behind-the-scenes roles, such as press officers or curators. They co-create events and exhibitions, give their feedback on venues’ offers for young people and help to design new activities or facilities.

Why take part?

You can:

  • give young people new opportunities to be part of your organisation
  • pilot new ways of working
  • find new partners in your local community
  • experience a fresh perspective on your venue
  • enthuse staff across your organisation
  • build your profile through social media and press coverage.

Museums say…

“We had very positive feedback from the school, our staff and members of the public who were visiting the museum – one of whom contacted the school with gifts for the children to thank them for guiding her.”

“The children who attended are looking at developing their own forum and are thinking about how young people can support the work that takes place in museums.”

“We feel it is an important event in our calendar that all staff enjoy. More members of our wider team had experience of working with the primary pupils. As they are not Learning and Participation staff this was great cross organisational sharing of knowledge and skills.”

When is Takeover Day?

  • Friday 22 November 2024

The theme of Takeover Day 2024 is Careers. Find out more.

What next?

To find out more, take a look through our support resources, planning films and case studies from other participating museums.

When you’ve planned your event, don’t forget to register on our website by visiting our Takeover Day web page.

We’re here to help, so do contact us if you need any support: [email protected]

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