Overview
The Victoria & Albert Museum is the leading Arts & Design museum in the world and a favorite for birthday, hen party and corporate team building treasure hunts. Search for the finest fashion, feasting goods and gorgeous gifts from cultures all around the globe. Named for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the beautiful Victorian building in the heart of stylish South Kensington, right next door to the Natural History and Science Museums, the Royal Albert Hall and Hyde Park and a short walk from Harrod’s for the best shopping in London!
We launched our treasure hunts when V&A commissioned THATMuse to build & host one of their Friday Lates. Theme? Travel!
The idea is simple: compete against each other, or the clock, to photograph your team in front of as many pieces as possible within a given amount of time (90 mins to 2 hrs). A variety of additional THATMuse bonus challenges, from the embarrassing to the illuminating, are embedded in your treasure text, ensuring that hunters read about their treasure — making the hunt educational, fun & interactive!
Please scroll down (on this page) for themes, sample & prices
Themes
Travel Trail
Globe-trotting across galleries, THATMuse sends you traipsing after travel-treasure such as Chinese Silk Road camels from the Tang Dynasty to Crusading crosses & Grand Tour busts. St Christopher & St James (patron saints of travel & pilgrims, respectively) are balanced by fabulous travel gear from the V&A’s famed fashion & textiles department. Join us for the journey & don’t forget your camera to snap up the trip!
Fashion Hunt
From Dior ensembles to Daoist priests robes, the V&A is chock-full of stylish designs from around the world. The museum will become a playground as you explore its fashionable collection for treasure, racing against the clock and other competitors. Be ready to put your pride aside and join your teammates in reenacting a mythical scene from a Kabuki Theater kimono or posing by the royal veil of Queen Victoria herself.
Festive Feasting
Festive Feasting, celebrating many holiday seasons, will have bacchanalian scavengers capturing as many culinary delights on their clue list as possible. Including ancient Korean spoons, the ornate gilded Burghley Nef (which dressed fine French dinner tables as a salt cellar), charming chalices, divine dining gowns and all the accoutrements of a good old-fashioned feast.
Sample clue
SACKLER COURTYARD
The Sackler wing (2017) is the V&A’s first addition in over a century. 11,000 handmade porcelain tiles in 15 different patterns meld the museum to Exhibition Road. This bright white play with geometry is above a 1,100 m2 temporary-exhibition space below. Architect Amanda Levete created an air-port sized subterranean space with 10-metre tall ceilings, and a serrated roof. We get to glimpse down from the ramp in this £55 million courtyard. 60 THATMuse points for selling your pride & videoing your equine-equipe: one teammate clapping your Scribe’s clipboard boisterously, another of you loudly neighing with vigor. If there’s a 3rd teammate have them hold chariot reigns behind, all of you trot trot trotting as you prance down the ramp. Your photographer videoing from the raised platform across Levete’s oculus – which is where?!?
Prices
CLASSIC HUNT: £95 for families (6 people or fewer)
LUXE HUNT: £300/3 hours (6 people or fewer)
GROUP HUNT: contact us for a quote
Extras
London Street Hunt
Want to keep the fun going after your museum treasure hunt? Our first London Streets Treasure Hunt is a completely self contained experience, starting outside the British Museum and taking you all the way to Trafalgar Square. Search for hidden secrets, family crests, magical alleyways and strange statues as you learn about the six (!) wives of King Henry VIII and how he shaped the city you see today.
The London Streets Hunt takes around 60-90 minutes from start to finish but it is not timed. Stop to explore the many landmarks on the route, grab some lunch at Covent Garden, or avoid the rain at the London Transport Museum and continue hunting in your own time.
Or race against the clock, and your friends or colleagues! Our street hunts make great team-building events for schools or companies as well as customized birthday party events! Add one to your booking today, or Contact Us for a quote.
Practical info
Hours
Opening Hours
Open 10 am – 5:45 pm every day, except Friday when it’s open till 9:45 pm
Closed 24, 25 and 26 December (open every other day of the year)
Getting there
Address
Cromwell Road and Exhibition Road, London SW7 2RL, England
Metro
South Kensington (Circle, District or Piccadilly Lines)
Bus Lines
V&A Museum Stop: 14, 74, 414, C1, N74, N97 South Kensington station: 14, 70, 74, 360, 414, 430, C1, N74, N97
Tickets
No tickets needed — the V&A is free to visitors (although a £5 donation is suggested).
