written by Blanchardfamily2001 on 30/05/2008
Good Points
Some rare exhibits
Bad Points
Poorly organised. Expensive shop. Pointless ban on non flash photography. No wheelchair access from front. Kept waiting past our ticket entrance time. Only about 50 of the exhibits were from King Tuts reign
General Comments
I took my son, age 6 to see the Tut exhibition at the O2, we had tickets for 2.30-3.00pm entrance. Arrived at 2.45 and waited and waited, as school party was allowed in and 5 others; we waited and waited. 3.15 we were allowed up the escalator. No apology and the staff were abrupt and unhelpful.
So at a King Tut Exhibition we waded through 3 "chambers" of non Tut artifacts, closely followed by a security guard (was this because I had a camera around my neck? that I was secretly photographing every item?) I did want to complain, but to who?
Ignoring the artefacts belonging to an era before King Tut, there was several notifiable pieces - The Wooden bust, the jar that contained his intestines and the jewellery from his tomb. That was about it.
There was a ban on photogaphy, why it was not made clear, I could understand flash photography, but this day an age Digital non flash would have worked, without the risk of lights destroying the painted decoration - considering the artefacts were under bright display lighting anyway, seemed only an excuse to make you buy in the expensive shop.
I will mention that disabled access was not marked anywhere - there was a lift within the bubble, but whether this was for disabled people, it was unclear.
As I mentioned the shop was expensive. I found to my cost the markup on a book called the Companion Pocket Guide was 100% of the RRP in Amazon ( £12 instead of £5.99). Postcards at 70p each; some gifts were made in Egypt, most were made in China and were heavily marked up.
To sum up; the king Tut exhibition is very expensive and even with the various discounts available through ticket master, they charge a handling and a postal/email charge on top of the ticket prices.
Most of the Exhibition covers the Boy Kings predecessors and only about a third is from his tomb. The shop is expensive and the markup on the gifts is scandalous.
I'm looking forward to getting the Exhibition DVD from another source for £8 less than at the exhibition, I just wish I had found out about the companion pocket book before hand.