McQueen: Night At The Museum

The Victoria & Albert Museum has announced that it will open through the night for the final two weekends of its run in order to meet demand for the sold-out Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition. With only one month to go, and with all pre-bookable tickets already sold out, the V&A will today make 12,000 further tickets available by opening from 10pm through the night on Friday 24 to Sunday 26 July, and round the clock the following weekend until the show ends at 11pm on August 2.

"We knew that Savage Beauty would be very popular, but the response has been even greater than we imagined," Martin Roth, director of the V&A said. "It is an extraordinary exhibition and I urge anyone who has not yet visited, wherever they are in the world, to make a trip to the V&A to experience this very special show. It is not going on tour to other venues so our aim is to provide as many people as possible with the opportunity to see it by opening through the night for the last two weekends. This will be the first time we have opened the V&A around the clock and we certainly think it is an event worth getting out of bed for."

During the extended hours, the museum's shop will feature special promotions, and a bar will offer refreshments all night, and music until 10pm.

More than 345,000 people have now been to see Savage Beauty, making it the most visited paid-for exhibition at the museum in the last decade. Staged on a smaller scale at the Costume Institute at the Metroplitan Museum of Art in New York in 2011.The exhibition arrived at the V&A on March 14 and has since operated for more than 1,000 hours for public opening and private events.