Museumweek
When museums closed their doors, Museum Week moved online. And the audio had to carry an entirely virtual experience for 120,000 visitors.
- Client
- Nationale Museumweek 2020
- Sector
- Cultural sector
- Year
- 2020
- What we did
- Music production, post production and sound design
- What it achieved
- 120,000 unique visitors and 124% more traffic than 2019, with every museum physically closed. Effie Award winner
Museum Week without museums
When the pandemic forced Dutch museums to close, the Museumvereniging refused to cancel. Instead, they reimagined Museum Week entirely online, and the sonic identity that Studio ZK had built over the previous years now had to carry an experience that no one could attend in person. The audio needed to feel grounding and familiar, yet open enough to translate to a completely digital world.
Same signature, different world
The strength of having built a robust sonic identity in prior years was that it could flex. We adapted the existing musical language for a campaign format that prioritised connection over spectacle. Keeping the warmth that had become associated with Museum Week, while letting the music carry more emotional weight in a moment when people couldn't physically share space.
Production built to move people at a distance
Musical production
Adapted scoring that kept the Museum Week sonic identity intact while shifting the emotional register to meet the particular weight of 2020.
Post production
Full audio post for TV and radio spots. The campaign ran on both, reaching people at home in two different listening contexts.
Sound design
Atmospheric sound design that brought a sense of physical museum space into a digital campaign, bridging the gap between screen and gallery.
What changes when a campaign moves from the room to the screen?
The plan for Museumweek 2020 was already in place when the museums closed. Everything that leaned on a physical visit had to become something else within weeks.
For the audio that meant two things. The emotional register shifted: where earlier editions were curious and light, this one had to carry the weight of an audience that could not gather. And the mix moved from room to headphones. A campaign you watch alone at home tolerates more detail and less volume than one that passes on television while people are talking.
The underlying sonic identity did not change. Only the execution moved with it, which is exactly what the system was built for.
120,000 people who still showed up
Despite all museums being closed, Museum Week 2020 reached 120,000 unique online visitors, and the Effie jury named it the most effective route to the non-frequent visitor. Familiar, warm audio, continuous with previous years, helped make a fully digital week feel like the real thing.
This project is one of seven Studio ZK made for the cultural sector. Audio identity for a national cultural campaign →