First off the mark was The Collection, Lincoln, where hundreds of children and adults came face-to-face with figures from Lincolnshire’s historic past. Living history group Lord Burgh’s Retinue helped shed light on the medieval way of life.

There were knights in full armour, a wise woman and her potions, as well as dancers and musicians. Staff members adopted the role of The Collection’s most notorious characters with Gaius Valerius the Standard Bearer of the 9th Legion, Claudia Chrysis a wealthy Roman lady and Thorfast the Viking smith.

A one-off exhibit proved to be the star attraction of the evening’s event. A living statue gargoyle was positioned outside the auditorium ready to spook all the children and adults at the end of the film screenings. Many were caught out as the gargoyle reached out to grab them creating lots of shouts and laughter but no tears!

Nuit des Musees on Saturday 19 May was celebrated in museums and galleries across Europe; last year some 3,000 museums took part. “It’s great that UK museums are joining in this celebration in great force this year”, said Liz Mackenzie, Co-Chair of MGM 2007.

In Bath, independent museums joined forces with the local authority for a week long promotion which culminated in the late night opening on Saturday 12 May. This was well supported and despite wind and rain thousands of Bath residents and visitors made the most of the opportunity.

Anya Hocking reports from the Newcastle: The Late Shows, the first event of its kind in the North East, brought the streets of NewcastleGateshead alive with culture this Saturday, 19 May in celebration of the international ‘Museums at Night’ event.

The evening got off to a flying start at 7pm, queues formed outside the Laing Art Gallery with fans of folk musician Jed Grimes eager to hear his set inspired by the current exhibition, Work, Rest and Play – a National Gallery touring exhibition.

Other live music throughout the night caught the imagination of visitors. Local band This ain’t Vegas pulled in the crowds at the BALTIC filling Performance Space 1 and proved a lively start to some people’s evening.

Meanwhile film footage was a big draw. The 2005 blockbuster Night at the Museum was shown at Discovery Museum and over 300 people flocked to watch the film – about a father being lost in a museum after dark – making the impressive Great Hall almost full to capacity. In total over 800 people visited Discovery Museum on the evening.

Other venues proving popular were the Centre for Life – 600 people were lured by the opportunity to visit the venue and take part in the science of alcohol - and The Hatton Gallery which attracted more than 400 people to take part in fun 3D mapping experiments based around their current exhibition Aggregate.

In total, fourteen venues, not usually open in the evening, opened their doors for this one off event, with a free bus service provided by CitySightseeing running the route on the evening.

At the Fishing and Heritage Museum in Grimsby 125 people enjoyed the film shows and 730 people came for the weekend. Tracy Welsh adds “This was a fantastic idea and has inspired my staff to start their own film club as the projection quality was so good. Let's have more next MGM please! Thanks for the opportunity to take part.”

Eileen Wilson reports from Haslemere Museum: The Museum was rocking on Saturday night when they celebrated with other Museums and Galleries throughout Europe the ‘Nuit des Musees’ (Night of Museums). This is the second time the museum has participated in the event. After enjoying pre-dinner drinks and a sumptuous dinner served by Millie’s Cuisine, over 80 guests then put their dancing skills to the test dancing to Vic Cracknel and Something 4 The Weekend until nearly midnight.

During the evening light hearted quizzes tested the brain cells, a Museum timeline was displayed to the interest of many and a display cabinet with ‘guess the objects’ proved very popular.

Julia Tanner, Museum curator said: "the atmosphere was amazing and it was so nice to see so many of our friends and supporters enjoying the event and looking around the galleries ‘after hours’, we look forward to the next one!"

Collette Brown reports from Northern Ireland: Nearly 1,600 people attended International Museum weekend at the Irish Linen Centre and Lisburn Museum. Events kicked off on Friday 18 May as Lisburn Museum hosted the film Night at the Museum, courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox.

The film was followed by very successful torchlight tours of the Museum. Staff dressed in period costume and guided visitors around the exhibits leading visitors to comment that “This was an excellent evening, exceptional value with tremendous effort put in by staff” and our younger visitors commented, “This was a really awesome idea. Cool!”

At the Wirral Museum, Birkenhead, Night at the Museum went down very well; we showed it at 2.30 Saturday afternoon and had about 60 in the audience, all very appreciative, says Colin Simpson. Thank you for facilitating this and I look forward to doing it again.

Jonathan and Julie report from Thurrock Museum in Essex: We had a great fun event - everybody enjoyed it and thought in our case the joint use of the museum and theatre was fantastic. We issued visitors with torches and turned all the lights out in the gallery - wow discovery - throwing light on history. We await Night of the Museum II. Small museum, two staff hard worked but really pleased we got involved. (We had support from some amateur dramatics who hammed up the historical characters) Thanks for your initiative.

Peter Blake at RAF Holmpton reports: A fantastic evening was enjoyed by an audience 'full house' of 60 for the screening of Night at the Museum, using our big screen and THX sound system this was an enthralling evening for all and also raised funds for the local lifeboat with an 'RNLI fund raising shop'

Many thanks to MGM 2007 - 20th Century Fox & Beatwax for making this possible and hoping that all the other screenings were a great success as well.

At the Swansea Museum, Roger Gale and colleagues had a good time: The showings went really well, the morning one rather quiet, the afternoon with around fifty people, and the evening fully subscribed, with around 110 folk watching. We should have sold ice-cream, hot-dogs and popcorn!

The theme has attracted a lot of publicity locally, in the press and radio, so we are pleased with how it turned out. Many thanks for your help with everything.

Sharon Arrowsmith at the Millom Folk Museum offered guided tours with the film showings throughout the weekend. Having borrowed extra chairs from the Youth Group, a projector from a staff member and a large screen from a well wisher we were all set. The Iron Industry room of our Museum was used as it was the biggest space potentially seating 30 people per showing.

The local paper ran a competition for children to win tickets and on the Friday night competition winner Ben was so excited! He loved the film and loved the Museum too! The film was well received by all who came and many commented how exciting it was to participate in something so unique. The event drew out people who would not normally come to the Museum and suitably impressed they promised to return for another look. A party of young people from the Youth Group were able to see the Museum environment in a different light. A challenge was set for them to produce artwork inspired by the evening that we will display as a temporary exhibition.

We would like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to participate, we thoroughly enjoyed the experience, our visitors did too and we look forward to next year!

Please send us your report of your Museums at Night event!