The place starts with a little cafe that’s open to everyone – not just people visiting the museum. They have delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. (Yum!)
After you go in the actual place, there’s a big concert stage with performances. (There was one going on while I was there.)
On that floor was also changing exhibits – like this little videogame one where the room itself looked awesome, not just the mini-exhibits within it.
There also was this huge structure, made of guitars, in the middle of the room. Basically, the whole second floor looked really dope.
Up on the 3rd floor, there were all these rooms where you could play various instruments (or sing), and there was an area where you could even practice mixing music.
There were waits for basically all the rooms. All of the rooms have 10-minute limits on them. You start your 10 minutes with a button outside the door, and at the end of the 10 minutes, the electronic instruments stop working…
But if you think you may only have to wait 10 minutes, you may be wrong. I saw a few different people just pop their door open and press the button to renew their time.
Ultimately, I didn’t use any of the rooms. It felt like I was at Berklee all over again. I thought, “eh, I’ve spent a lifetime in these practice rooms. I don’t need to take anyone’s precious 10-minutes in this crowded place.”
There also was a place where you could go onstage and pretend to play instruments as a track played along. A big curtain reveals “screaming fans” (a big picture of people with a bunch of cheering through speakers) at the beginning of your set. And you can get a video of it.
It looks pretty fun!
Overall, this seems like a cool interactive museum – a nice stop in Seattle!