The Museum of Ice Cream Is Opening a Supersized Permanent New York Flagship, With a Three-Story Slide and a ‘Hall of Giant Scoops’

New York is about to get a whole lot sweeter.
The juggernaut that is the Museum of Ice Cream, which helped kick the
pop-up museum trend
into high gear with the launch of its first New York edition in
2016, has announced plans to return to the city with its first
permanent space, coming this fall to 558 Broadway in Soho. The
original version, sited across from the Whitney Museum in the
Meatpacking District, was an instant sensation,
selling out 30,000 tickets without in just five days.

To date, the MOIC has had over 1.5 million visitors across
pop-ups in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and San
Francisco. It has also branched into retail with a Sephora makeup
collection, a branded ice cream, and a branded children’s clothing
line for Target. It has also inspired seemingly countless
imitators, from the avocado-themed CADO, to the Museum of Pizza, to
the Dream Machine.

If you haven’t had your Instagram moment at the MOIC yet, it may
have been worth waiting. The new museum will cover nearly 25,000
square feet, with the largest version of its signature sprinkle pool to date. Guests can also look
forward to 13 brand new installations inspired by ice cream and
other desserts, created by MOIC’s architects and designers.
Highlights will include a three-story slide, a floating table of
desserts, a hall of giant scoops, a MTA-inspired “Celestial
Subway,” and a hidden “Queen Bee hive.”

“Being able to build out from a cold, dark shell and literally
design every square inch of the experience truly is a dream from a
creative perspective,” Bunn told Fast Company
of the new location. “We can deliver for the first time a
state-of-the-art experience, because we’re able to create every
square inch. In a pop-up environment, you can’t really do
that.”

On the negative side, the price of entry has more than doubled,
from just $18 in 2016 to a hefty $38—far more than the city’s
premiere cultural destinations like the Metropolitan Museum of Art
and the Museum of Modern Art (both $25) or the nearby New Museum
(just $12). (The MOIC already charges as much at its current San
Francisco location, open through September 22.)

The news comes on the heels of MOIC co-founders Maryellis Bunn
and Manish Vora’s announcement that they were launching a parent
company, Figure8, with a $200 million
valuation and $40 million in first-round funding. The company
will specialize in what the duo are calling “experiums”—a term
combining the words “experience” and “museum” that Figure8 has
trademarked—a new way to talk about the so-called Instagram
trap.

“For the last three years, we’ve been having conversations about
what we create,” Bunn told Forbes.
“‘Museum’ is not the right word and ‘experience’ is not the right
word, because an experience can be having a cup of tea, writing a
letter or walking outside. So we need to properly define this word
for ourselves and for the world. ‘Experiums’ are spaces and places
for people to reconnect with themselves and with those surrounding
them.”

Though it may seem like the pop-up museum phenomenon is nearing
a saturation point, Bunn and Vora are betting that audiences’
appetite for photo-ready immersive theme installations remains
unsated. A statement from Vora
noted that “MOIC NYC is the first of several flagship locations
that will launch in the US and abroad over the next 18 months.” The
waiting list is already open for the forthcoming location, with the
MOIC website warning that “tickets will sell out!”

Tickets for the Museum of Ice Cream at 528 Broadway, New
York, go on sale October 9, 2019, and are $38. Children two and
under are free. 

The post The Museum of Ice Cream Is Opening a Supersized
Permanent New York Flagship, With a Three-Story Slide and a ‘Hall
of Giant Scoops’ appeared first on artnet News.