News scoop: The Museum of Ice Cream opens in S.F.
Fans scoop up tickets to ice cream exhibition
There’s nothing vanilla about the Museum of Ice Cream, except maybe one of its flavors.
The pop-up saccharine shrine to America’s favorite frozen dessert opened in San Francisco on Sunday. Nearly every wall is painted bright pink. Exhibit-goers can sit on, swim in, walk on and even eat the art. Selfies aren’t just tolerated — they’re encouraged.
People are clamoring to nab tickets for the Museum of Ice Cream at 1 Grant Avenue. Other stops on the repository’s pop-up tour sold out within hours,
including one last summer in New York City, where it was founded, and another in Los Angeles this year.
The San Francisco exhibit will run Wednesdays through Mondays until Feb. 13. Its stay was extended earlier this month when tickets, which are $38, sold out through October within 18 minutes of going online.
But it’s not unexpected. The new trends in museums are interactivity and a focus on social media posts. While the Museum of Ice Cream is marketed as just that — a museum — that’s where the comparisons end. This isn’t the Louvre, where historic artworks hang behind thick sheets of glass and a railing. Aside from a brief history of ice cream near the entrance, there aren’t information boards or plaques.
“All of the museum locations are very distinct and accessible,” said Manish Vora, a co-founder of the exhibit. “The installations are different. We spend time in the city and cater it to elements of the building and the local identity. We have over 500 room ideas; the challenge is deciding what fits. All of the installations here are reimagined.”
The Museum of Ice Cream comes to San Francisco on the tail end of the Color Factory, which runs through the end of this month and has drawn hordes of Millennials hoping to snap the perfect photo for their social media feed. The “factory” includes a huge pit filled with yellow balls, a confetti room and an installation with hundreds of ribbons hanging from the ceiling. Museum-goers pick up desserts from local bakeries throughout the display.
The Museum of Ice Cream, located in a historic bank near Union Square, has a candy garden, psychedelic rainbow unicorns, a pink rock climbing wall, banana swings, an allpink diner with a jukebox and a sprinkle pool filled with more than 100 million plastic imitation sprinkles. A circular swimming space even has pink floats and a diving board. Local creameries are providing the “scoop of the week,” including halved mochi ice cream balls from My/Mo Mochi Ice Cream and samples from Bi-Rite, It’s It, Salt & Straw and Cream.
The tickets — if one can even get a pair — are coveted. Joselyn Bautista Zamudio, 19, of South San Francisco said she felt lucky she bought them online in time for Sunday’s opening.
“The experience of going to a museum of ice cream will be one for the books,” she said, adding that it was reminiscent of the childhood excitement she felt getting ice cream for dessert.
“This one is full of color, and who does not love ice cream?” she said. “There’s on-hand art that you can experience and take a lot of beautiful and creative photos.”
The museum is designed to be socially shareable, and a nostalgic place where adults can feel like children, said museum co-founder Maryellis Bunn.
While in Los Angeles and New York City, the museum drew celebrities like Gwen Stefani, Beyoncé and the Kardashian clan. Thousands of posts on Instagram show adults and children laughing in the sprinkle pool and posing with a white unicorn next to a rainbow backdrop.
“I love seeing how people react to the exhibits,” said Bunn, 25. “It’s designed to be fun. There are no restrictions.”
A cluster of teenagers dressed in cotton-candy-pink outfits seemed to be having a blast as they posed for iPhone photos in the museum’s Pop Rocks Cave. A worker, also dressed in pink, handed out tiny packets of the candy, which sizzled and popped every time the teens opened their mouths.
“Wait, get a video of this for my Snapchat story,” said one girl, handing off the phone to her friend.