SINGAPORE – Night At The Gem Museum is a special event aimed at making gemstones come alive, so to speak, a play on its movie franchise inspiration, Night At The Museum.
The Gem Museum, which is officially reopening at new premises in Perak Road on Saturday (June 4), is providing visitors with torches equipped with UV and LED lights to showcase the beauty of gemstones for the event on Friday nights in the month of June.
It is one of 14 museums offering night-time activities as part of the night-themed Children’s Season 2022 amid the June school holidays. Among the programmes is Artefacts Alive, which features storytelling inspired by museum artefacts, as well as craft sessions, at the Indian Heritage Centre, Asian Civilisations Museum and the National Museum of Singapore.
Mr Tay Kunming, director of Far East Gems and Jewellery and co-founder of The Gem Museum, said more than 200 gemstones were chosen to be featured at the event.
“I had to look through hundreds of carats of stones, and pick up those that really have a strong fluorescence that can display this kind of unique behaviour under UV light. So I had to constantly turn off the lights, switch on the lights to choose them.”
The torches prepared by the museum house three lights – LED yellow, LED white, and UV – and are designed to highlight effects such as the changing of colours of gemstones under different lights. Visitors will also be able to handle some of the gemstones and light them up from different angles with the torches.
Ms Namita Sinha, 29, a content creator, who was at a preview of the event on Wednesday (June 1) with her 41/2-year-old daughter Samaira, said: “I thought this would be a great opportunity to expose her to different kinds of gemstones. The things we see here, which are actually not very usual, attract kids.”
Ms Jyoti Negi Rawat, 38, a digital creator, who took her daughter Myra, six, and son Yashash, nine, to the preview, said she likes that her children can touch and explore the gemstones.
Seah Ern Ting, 13, who was at the preview with her mother, said: “I have never seen so many gemstones in one place.”
At Friday’s event, visitors can expect to see people dressed as Star Wars characters – Mr Tay has asked his friends to don the costumes to make the experience fun for children. He said he hopes to make this a regular feature at all four iterations of the event.
Mr Tay, who has been in the jewellery industry for over 15 years, said: “We want people to come and have an up-close encounter with gemstones, and leave this place in awe and wonder of the beauty of gems.”
Tickets for Night At The Gem Museum are priced at $5 for children, and $10 for adults, inclusive of the equipment, with three one-hour slots from 7pm.
For more details, visit this website.
