Happy April Fools day! In case you hadn’t noticed, today is April 1st, which means you need to be on the lookout for pranks! In celebration of the joke-filled day, we’ve rounded up five of the biggest pranks executed by museums and buildings across the world.
Ball pit opens in a museum!
Last year, a museum in Amsterdam fooled their followers by pretending that they were going to open an immersive ball pit exhibition in front of a painting called The Night Watch!
They announced the news on Instagram stating: “We would like to introduce you to our newest family-friendly museum experience! It can sometimes be hard to engage your children with art, but with this immersive ball pit it is hard to get them out of the museum.”
Museum goers weren’t best pleased by the announcement, and were totally fooled by the joke. One commenter wrote: “A nursery is a nursery. And a museum is a museum. Total disrespect for the arts.” Chill out!
Giant slide added to the Eiffel Tower
Last year the Eiffel Tower decided to play a cheeky joke on the world, announcing that the landmark would be fitted with a giant slide twisting all the way around it in the colours of the French flag.
Tweeting the trick on Twitter they wrote: “You’re not ready for this! The tallest slide in the world will be installed on [the] summit from July 1st!”
The tweet was accompanied by a realistic looking mock-up video of the tower. As France is known for its chic and classy vibe, you can imagine those who fell for the joke weren’t best pleased. Sounds amazing to us though!
Lincoln welcomes a sausage museum!
This one is really quite silly! Back in 2019, Lincoln decided to prank their city by announcing that a sausage museum would be opening in their area. Not only that, but the porky extended to them suggesting that Skegness Council would be spending a royal sum of 10 million pounds on the idea!
The prank, titled “Project Sausage” was also published by the local press who went along with the joke. A local council member told The Lincolnshire Reporter: “Everyone loves a sausage. We can’t wait to see how visitors to our Lincolnshire coast make the most of events like sausage making, Weiner Wednesdays and hot dog contests.”
The Guggenheim is red!
Back in 2023, the Guggenheim museum in New York tricked the city’s residents by announcing that they would be painting the iconic white building bright red! The prank was pretty believable because the original designer – Frank Lloyd – had actually originally planned for it to be red, before it was vetoed by the Museum director.
On April 1st 2023, the museum posted an image of the building in red to Instagram writing:
“In 1945, the architect of the Guggenheim, Frank Lloyd Wright, first proposed red for the museum’s façade but was shot down by the museum’s first director, Hilla Rebay. Well, we are finally making his wish come true! Wright’s design has been honoured, and the institution has begun work on changing the museum’s exterior colour to red.”
One worried commenter was very stressed by the news, writing: “Noooooooooo!!! What a terrible idea! Hope this is someone’s idea of a joke post!” Luckily it was!
Banksy Prank!
Okay, now this prank wasn’t exactly done on April Fools day, but we think it’s pretty brilliant all year round. The one and only Banksy has played a fair few pranks on museums over the years, but on this occasion, he decided to sneak into the Natural History Museum.
In 2004 he entered the building disguised as an employee carrying a taxidermy (stuffed) rat! He then placed the rat – which was dressed up in sunglasses, backpack and holding a graffiti can – in the museum and sprayed the words “our time will come” over the top. The artwork is meant to imply that the rat wrote the note, saying that one day these intelligent and resilient creatures will take over the world. It hasn’t happened yet…
