Opening Weekend Special

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Are you ready to play? Gear up for a special opening of our newest experiential pop-up, Play:Date – Unlocking Cabinets of Play, this weekend!

Play:Date – Unlocking Cabinets of Play is a new experiential pop-up that invites all to relive and connect over nostalgic memories centred on toys. A collective effort with our local community of artists and toy collectors, this showcase presents over 250 locally and globally recognisable toys across various eras.

Departing from the traditional museum exhibition format, Play:Date imaginatively transforms different parts of the Museum into a joyous landscape of play – including the temporary spaces and construction hoardings installed for our ongoing restoration works.

From extensive toy collections to large-scale artworks, get ready to reconnect with your favourite toys and relive your childhood memories. Take your visit to the next level with engaging digital gamified experiences featuring your very own digital toy avatar Play:Mate!

Play:Date – Unlocking Cabinets of Play is a free showcase and will run until 5 January 2025. Separate fees apply for the digital gamified experiences within the showcase.

Opening Weekend of Play:Date

6 & 7 Jul | 10am – 5pm | Glass Atrium, Level 2 and around the museum

Join us for the opening weekend of the museum’s newest experiential pop-up Play:Date – Unlocking Cabinets of Play! Explore toy collections, large-scale interactive artworks and digital gamified experiences themed around play. On this weekend only, you can also relive your childhood with both nostalgic and new tabletop games, or complete a short quiz at our toy showcase to grab a “playful” prize from our giant claw machine*!

* Prizes are available on a first come first served basis, while stocks last. Only 1 prize is allowed per participant. Staff onsite will verify completion of the quiz before redemption.

Inside the museum, the entrance to Play:Date is a tunnel housing a digital parade of toy figurines titled The Toy Colony by local artist Lioncolony, also known as Oh Jia Hao. His Gman characters are inspired by toys from the 1950s to the 2000s from our National Collection and local collectors, and serve as a primer to the showcase’s overarching narrative of local and global social histories.

Enjoy interactive gaming experiences inspired by old-school gaming arcades! Start off by purchasing a Starter Pack to get your avatar and game credits. Accumulate points by playing Memory Match, where you have to memorise a sequence of objects on the screen; Roadblock Highway, where you can engage in an adrenaline-filled virtual race; or Brick Battle, where you need to break bricks as quickly as possible. To complement the nostalgic vibe, you'll be able to view a 'live' 8-bit camera image of yourself via an '8bitify screen'.

Image Credit: National Museum of Singapore