Museum of Pop Culture

Address:	325 5th Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109, USA
Phone:	+1 206-770-2700
Site:	mopop.org
Rating:	4.2
Working:	10AM–5PM 10AM–5PM 10AM–5PM 10AM–5PM 10AM–5PM 10AM–5PM 10AM–5PM

Location

Photos 100

Reviews 5

Otto von Bismarck

Like Nirvana and Hendrix? No? Then STAY AWAY. And even if you DO like those two acts, Id encourage you to think twice about forking over an outrageous $23 a head ($17 for children, no less!). Once inside, youll discover the museum is ludicrously small (funny thing about Frank Gehry architecture is its like dyslexia meets crack cocaine -- you end up with an architectural abortion and a lot of wasted interior space), with a handful of puny exhibits populating dark, crowded, and confusing corridors. If the overemphasis on Hendrix seems like a weird choice for an experience MUSIC project, the answer lies in the EMPs roots. Local money bags (and closeted imbecile) Paul Allen, who singularly kept the institution afloat as it hemorrhaged money for its first decade, originally envisioned a Hendrix-only museum. And so it might have been, except that somewhere midway through the design stage, someone with half a brain in their head must have dared whisper in Allens ear that such a museum would fail. Colossally. Hendrix burnouts, you see, tend not to be big museum-goers. As it stands, rumors abound that the museum nearly went under a couple of times during its dark initial years. And this explains the downright schizophrenic catch all line-up of exhibits. Rather than risk having a museum about something, Allen apparently eventually decided to have a museum about EVERYTHING. And so you arrive at the present day: the EMP WORLDAPALOOZA. But the problem with that approach is that people, generally speaking, have individual tastes. And these tastes are rarely eclectic in nature. Thus, your average patron is going to be interested in perhaps 2 or 3 exhibits in the EMP, more than likely snoring their way past the remainder. This isnt unusual -- people like certain things. And since EMP attempts to cater to every whim of popular culture in the past three decades, chances are solid youre going to dislike more than you like if you step through those doors. But hey, what the **** do I know? I only worked there. I only heard patron after patron walk out the doors complaining that they were ripped off. You wanna blow $100 to take a family of four through this tourist trap? Be my guest, you stupid yuppie.

Casey Penk

I went here for a video game event a while back. First off, let there be no mistake that the exterior architecture is edgy and beautiful. Its a testament to the kind of raw energy that Seattle was known for the 90s and I suggest people give it a bit more attention before writing it off as a piece of trash. The video game event I attended was mediocre at best. The exhibit showed a wide range of games, but only some were playable and they covered only a tiny sliver of the massive industry. In an attempt to cover the entire history of video games they only briefly examined any particular period or title. The exhibit seemed to lack an overall theme or purpose, other than something vague about informing the public about video games. I wonder how carefully this was curated. If this purports to be a museum it should take its craft as seriously as one. The exhibit was also tiny, occupying just a few rooms. This made it a quick trip you can pass through in an hour or so. Either EMP is painfully tiny or the other exhibits are larger. During the video game event we had the chance to view some other galleries. We went into a Jimi Hendrix exhibit. It was mildly interesting but the small time we spent there seemed like more than enough to get the gist. For hardcore fans the museum must have real appeal. For the rest of it seems excessive. The museum seems overly focused on pop culture at the expense of meaningful history or art. Perhaps thats related to the museums status as a tourist trap that doesnt have to be any good. People will go anyways. This is the nature of a privately-funded pop culture museum: the subject matter and curatorial approach reflect the interests of the benefactor. This one doesnt work for me.

Lindsey Green

I have heard great things about the Mopop but I was so let down. You really have to be a big fan of what they have on exhibit to enjoy it. And with the expensive price point you have to know ahead what youre getting so you dont end up feeling ripped off like we did. When I went with my 3 kids (8,6,2) and my in-laws the main largest exhibits were David Bowie, evolutions of guitars and video gaming, Jimmy Hendrix, and Star Trek. After an hour we were all done. I have never seen a Star Trek episode and Im not into David Bowie or Jimmy Hendrix. My in laws are In their 70s and they werent impressed with lack of variety of the exhibits. There is so much more to pop culture than music which was like 75% of the museum. I personally was most excited for the video game exhibit and was so let down. There were a bunch of different monitors with different games you could play and 3 larger areas for wii type interactive games. We went on a week day and this place was packed (probably because its the only place remotely fun for kids). We tried out 4 games and the monitors were all frozen saying they were loading. There werent any employees anywhere in sight to assist. Sadly we didnt get to even try anything because the same 10 kids wouldnt get off the only games that were working. It would have been so neat if they had the option to try out different gaming systems from the past but it wasnt like that at all. I would save your money and instead go to the science center unless youre a die hard David Bowie fan that wants to see 200 pictures of him.

Dave L

Went here as part of the city pass. This museum is absolutely amazing! This is coming from somebody that doesnt tend to rate things highly. The exhibits are highly appealing and did a great job combining visual and auditory senses. I was enjoying exhibits on musicians/bands that I dont really like...thats how well it was put together. The music rooms were...well I couldnt believe them. When I went they were very empty. You could go in some rooms and just jam for 10 minutes on drums, guitars, keyboards, etc. Other rooms specialized in one instrument, or you could use a microphone and practice vocals. What a toy! The best part was the rooms are soundproof, so no need to feel embarrassed! The scifi was eh. I am fairly big into Star Trek, and they had some interesting stuff there, but outside of one or two neat exhibits, it seemed a bit of an after thought. But it hardly matters, because the rest of the museum is just that awesome. This seems like a great museum for people in their 20s and 30s, probably good for teens too, and plenty of the older crowd as well..... I know my 63 year old pop would have loved it too. You could easily spend a full day at this museum.

Andrew Derringer

Im a big museum fan, and I was particularly excited about one as unique as MoPoP. The themes of their exhibits were great, but I left feeling that few had the depth I was hoping to find. The sections dedicated to Horror, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi all had a decent amount of props, but I was hoping to learn something about the history of these genres including major events and progression over time. Mostly it just showed the prop and a picture of it in action during a movie. The Indie gaming exhibits was the most disappointing. I learned nothing about the major events in game development history, and very little of what brought about indie game development specifically. There were many interesting games available to play, but about a fourth of the screens were white with no way to interact or restart the consoles. The only sections that I felt lived up to my favorite museum experiences were the Nirvana exhibit and the Sound Studio where you could learn the basics of instruments first hand and try them out.