Army Flying Museum at Middle Wallop celebrates online success

An online lecture produced by the Army museum of flying near Andover has set a new record for viewership.

While the museum at Middle Wallop has been closed they've been producing online events to maintain their profile.

The so-called 'lockdown lecture' on the Pegasus bridge story attracted nearly a thousand viewers live and more than 5000 watched the recording afterwards.

Ella Clayton, series producer, said:

“Typically we would get around 250 viewers on the live broadcast and that number would rise to 1,000 after broadcast, to reach 500 live was always the ambition but with more online material available for people to watch we never thought it would be possible, so this is an incredible moment.

“Having watched our Op DEADSTICK lecture, which told the incredible story of the greatest coup de main assault in wartime history, SOFO felt there was a great sequel lecture to tell the story of what happened next after the gliders had landed, and approached us about a collaborative production.

“We've been overwhelmed by messages of support and congratulations."

Background

Borne from the Middle Wallop based museum’s desire to maintain audience engagement during the first lockdown, and originally recorded on an iPhone, the lockdown lectures were a remote collaborative effort which produced and edited content for a monthly lecture series, which would be broadcast and followed by a live Q&A with its presenter.

Despite being closed to the public for large parts of 2020 and early 2021 the Museum still managed to attract a global audience from countries including the United States, South Africa, New Zealand, Canada, Peru and Brazil.

Since its inception the series has become more and more sophisticated with, now, state-of-the-art recording and broadcasting equipment, with location shoots when possible.

Coming soon

The next lecture, V is for Valour, takes place at 7pm on Monday 22 February for more info visit www.armyflying.com/lockdown-lectures.

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