banksy exhibition, bristol

Savvy_Sue

That would be Trenchard Street, I think it's cheaper on Saturdays!

pavlovs_dog

we've just got back!

left Cardiff on the 6.30 coach :eek: to get to Bristol as early as we could face. Because the bus was delayed we eventually joined the queue at 8.20 on the hill opposite the grammar school.

everything was very well organised - the staff were happy to help, direct and advise how long the wait was likely to be from that point in the queue. there was no pushing in, and you could pop back and forth to get food, drinks, visit the loo etc. there was a real sense of commeraderie amongst people in the queue, with mexican waves and the like being attempted en masse.

the queues moved quite steadily, even in the hour and 40 minutes before the museum actually opened - we never did quite figure out why this happened

once we reached the holding pen our wait was around 3 hours. In total we queued for 4 hours 45 minutes but it really didn't feel that long. Thankfully we were surrounded by some really nice people, and i'll chat to anyone about anything so i didnt want for entertainment

I loved the exhibition and would really recommend it if you can find the time to get there before it closes for good on Monday. Although it was full to capicity it never felt overly crowded, and people were unusually respectful about waiting to get close to things to take pictures and not walking through other peoples' shots (bugbears of mine)! I did find the layout a bit confusing, and it was hard to tell if you had covered all sections on each level (not helped by our early start and tiredness from the queue).

we spent three hours exploring and they flew by. It was lovely to be allowed to wander around at your own pace. no one tried to rush us at any point. Souveniers in the gift shop were limited but blackwells and borders nearby both had cards and books on sale. ignore comments on the bbc mini site about the oxfam bookshop - they have sold out of stock.

by the time we left the museum at 4pm the queue time was 2 hours :doh: to the surprise of the staff - i think they had feared an absolutely manic weekend.

i believe it's open until 8pm tomorrow night and 5pm on Monday night when it will close. There's a new exhibition starting in a few days so it really doesn't look like it will be kept on

Hope that helps anyone thinking of going - it's well worth it. many thanks to Sue, Joe and financial illiterate for your help and advice :beer:

kirstypea

I went a couple of weeks ago. There was a group of people in front of me, and half of them snuck round with stamps faked with raspberry ice cream sauce! And they got in :rolleyes::mad:

geri1965_2

kirstypea wrote: »

I went a couple of weeks ago. There was a group of people in front of me, and half of them snuck round with stamps faked with raspberry ice cream sauce! And they got in :rolleyes::mad:

What?

kirstypea

geri1965 wrote: »

What?

First you queue to get a stamp (that's the 3 hour one) which then allows you to walk down the road & join the small queue outside the museum. The stamp is red and says "BANKSY" but it's a bit smudgy. They faked their stamp with raspberry icecream sauce from the (probably very minted) icecream man and jumped straight to the mini queue.

Sorry if I didn't explain it very well!

geri1965_2

Ah, I get you.