The festival, which is organised as a part of the Museums for Everybody Programme, is a new tradition, much like the Museum May Day and the Night of Museums.
The main goal of the Museum Autumn Festival is to show how museum-going can be fun and to attract more students and families, said state secretary at the Ministry of Education and Culture Márta Schneider.
Though about four-fifths of Hungary's museum exhibitions are outside of the capital, Budapest still attracts half of museum visitors. The Ministry of Education and Culture wants to change this uneven proportion with the Museum Autumn Festival as well as with its Alfa Programme, that helps support local council-run museums, said Schneider.
About 50 museums participated in the first Museum Autumn Festival in 2006 and 75 were involved in 2007. This year, 110 museums are organising programmes and special events based on eight themes. Visitor numbers have also grown: the festival drew 25,000 museum-goers in 2006 and more than 120,000 in 2007.
Visitors to this year's festival can be a guest in the court of a Roman governor, try their hand editing Hungary's most famous literary journal and learn the art of baroque ornamentation or the secrets of carpet making.
The festival will kick off with an awards ceremony at the Museum of Applied Arts to acknowledge educators who use museums as teaching tools.
A conference on learning and museums will also take place at the opening of the festival. The Ministry of Education and Culture and many museums will present the latest research on the subject.
