Information Age at Science Museum

Information Age at the Science Museum traces over 200 years of communication technology across six themed zones — from telegraph to smartphone, through the first BBC radio broadcast in 1922 and into the digital age. The gallery opened in 2014 when Her Majesty The Queen sent her first tweet from the space, and it retains that sense of connectivity between past and present. Four hundred standing for evening receptions, 120 seated for dinner, and 50 theatre-style for daytime conferences — a range of formats that reflects the gallery’s unusual dual availability for both daytime and evening hire. The six zones create natural guest flow and distinct conversation areas within a single hire. Each zone tells stories through the eyes of inventors, operators, and the people whose lives were transformed by new technology — a narrative approach that resonates more personally than object-only displays and gives guests a sense of connection to the exhibits.

Daytime Hire at the Science Museum’s Information Age Gallery

The daytime option sets Information Age apart from nearly every other Science Museum gallery, which are overwhelmingly evening-only. Breakfast meetings, team-building sessions, workshops, and conferences for up to 50 theatre-style run while the gallery is closed to the public on limited dates throughout the year. The scale is deliberately intimate — this is a focused working environment within a museum setting, not a repurposed gallery straining to function as a conference room. The six zones provide natural breakout areas within the single hire, allowing conference programmes to move between formal presentations and informal discussion without leaving the space. No room flips, no partition walls, no waiting for reconfiguration — delegates move from one zone to the next as the programme requires. The communications technology theme resonates particularly strongly with tech, media, and telecommunications events, where the historical context provides a backdrop that reinforces industry identity and makes the working day feel more considered than a standard meeting room hire.

Evening Receptions and Dinners in the Science Museum’s Information Age

At full capacity, 400 standing guests circulate through the six zones during evening receptions. The evolution from telegraph to smartphone is a narrative most audiences connect with personally — guests find exhibits that relate to their own experience of communications technology, and the gallery generates conversation organically without requiring programmed entertainment or structured activities. Seated dinners for 120 offer a more intimate format within the same space, with the gallery’s exhibits providing atmosphere and talking points around the tables. Product launches for tech and communications brands find particularly strong alignment — the gallery’s content validates messaging about innovation by placing it within a 200-year continuum. Corporate networking events and Christmas parties use the gallery’s inherent interest to sustain energy levels throughout the evening.

Practical Details for Information Age Hire at the Science Museum

Accredited suppliers handle catering and AV production across all hire formats. Alcohol licence until 23:00 with extension available. The gallery sits on the museum’s second floor and connects naturally to multi-space programmes where different floors serve different event phases — presentations in IMAX on the ground floor, reception in Information Age on the second, dinner in Making the Modern World below. The gallery can be closed to the public for exclusive daytime use on limited dates, and forms part of the full museum exclusive hire available for 1,500-plus guests across the complete portfolio. For planners specifically seeking a Science Museum gallery with daytime availability, Information Age and Illuminate are the primary options — the former offering gallery character and communications heritage, the latter offering blank canvas flexibility and larger conference capacity. Both provide something genuinely different from the museum’s evening-only heritage galleries.