Compared to last year, attendance increased by 64,431. The new Dinosauria exhibition was the most popular attraction of the year with 55,407 dinosaur fans visiting the exhibition. The exhibition will remain at the SuperPark until the end of April.
In the second place was the Tietomaa Science Centre, which closed in July, with 49,753 visitors. While the Tietomaa Science Centre is closed, the Science Centre on the Road project takes the action to schools, visiting 15 schools and reaching more than 600 students between November and December.
Oulu Art Museum’s exhibitions attracted a total of 36,936 visitors. The most popular exhibitions were those of Riitta-Alina Helevä and Matti Tarvainen, which were shown at the same time and attracted 20,530 visitors. The exhibition Will and Skill – Artist Women of the Early 20th Century, based on the Art Museum’s own research project, attracted great interest for three months and brought 13,139 people to the museum. An online publication about the artists in the exhibition was also produced and can be found on the Oulu Art Museum’s website at https://ouluntaidemuseo.fi/julkaisut (in Finnish).
The Museum of Northern Ostrobothnia’s exhibitions attracted a large number of visitors during the museum’s last year in the Ainola building, with a total of 33,897 visitors. Especially the last few months before the museum closed for the move made people from Oulu and tourists want to visit the exhibitions one last time.
The summer holidays are a busy time for museum visits. The busiest month was July, when all the museum sites of the Oulu Museum and Science Centre were open and 43,480 people visited them. Among the summer destinations, the Turkansaari Open Air Museum attracted the most visitors with a total of 15,082 people, while the Kierikki Centre attracted a total of 8,753 visitors interested in the Stone Age. The year ended at the Sailor’s Home Museum in Pikisaari, which opened its doors three weeks before Christmas, bringing a touch of Christmas spirit of old to the city. The museum had a total of 8367 visitors, surpassing the previous peak of 7447 visitors in 2019.
The popular Museum Card and Kaikukortti cards give access to the museums in the Oulu Museum and Science Centre. Last year, 12,679 visits were registered with the Museum Card and 2,332 with the Kaikukortti Card.
SPECIAL EVENTS AND GUIDED TOURS WERE POPULAR
A total of 554 public events such as guided tours, workshops, lectures, markets, family days and senior meetings were organised in the visitor destinations last year. A total of 441 workshops were organised with 8498 participants. Nearly a thousand guided tours were organised with a total of 13,898 participants.
In 2023, three art cabinets toured kindergartens in the city of Oulu, reaching a total of approximately 2000 people in early childhood education. In addition, two mini-art cabinets in kindergartens and one mini-art cabinet in service homes were visited in different municipalities in the area covered by the regional responsibility museum. Around 1350 people visited the mini-art cabinets. In addition, three travelling exhibitions toured the museum’s area of operation in different municipalities, visited by around 1700 people.
The Oulu Museum and Science Centre is responsible for museum work in Northern Ostrobothnia – for the production, preservation and presentation of science, art and history in the North. The individual museums are the Tietomaa Science Centre, the Northern Ostrobothnia Museum, the Oulu Art Museum, the Kierikki Stone Age Centre and the Turkansaari Open Air Museum, the Sailors’ Home Museum, the Pateniemi Sawmill Museum, the Oulunsalo Museum of Local History and Culture and the Oulu Castle Cellar. Last year, the sites were open for a total of 1422 days and 10,328 hours.
