Is the Experience Music Project in Seattle Worth a Visit?

Updated for 2014

The Experience Music Project in Seattle, Washington is a interactive immersion museum that celebrates the history of music. It’s such a popular attraction that since its completion in 2000, the Experience Music Project (abbreviated as EMP) has pulled in over 4.5 million visitors through its front doors. The EMP is located in the Seattle Center, home of the Seattle Space Needle and the 1962 World’s Fair. In 2004, the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame was piggybacked onto the museum, and the two sites are now known collectively as the EMP/SFM.

For families deciding whether the Experience Music Project is worth a visit, here’s what our family discovered:

You’ve got to love music: If you aren’t that “into” music and the history of music, this museum will not hold any appeal. Non-musical types will zip through the museum in an hour, while the rest of us don’t mind spending all day. And, while youngsters will definitely enjoy the sound labs, we didn’t see any kids in the Jimmy Hendrix exhibit, the various music history galleries, or the guitar gallery.

You can’t mind the crowds: The upper floor holds an assortment of sound studios in which the inner musician in you can learn how to play a guitar, the keyboards, or the drums. Once you’ve got the skill down, you can play in a rock band or mix a platinum record. This area holds tremendous appeal for kids and adults alike and visitors will find themselves having to wait quite a while for an available room. Even though we showed up minutes after the museum opened, we still had a 45 minute wait before being able to snag a guitar sound lab.

You have to enjoy reading: While you can rent a walking tour gizmo complete with earphones, you can’t get around the fact that there is a lot of reading to do. Yes, all of it is utterly fascinating reading, but after a while, you begin to suffer from information overload.

You can’t mind the noise: Walking through the Experience Music Project is a little bit like listening to MTV cranked to high volume for 5 hours straight. It’s cool at first, but after a while us old geezers want a little peace and quiet for a few minutes so we can think.

You’ve got to have the time: Our family spent nearly 5.5 hours at the EMP/SFM and still didn’t get to see and read everything. This is not a museum you can run through in a couple of hours. To get the most out of your visit, it’s best not to schedule any other sightseeing when planning a visit to the Experience Music Project & Science Fiction Museum.

One of the real strengths of the EMP/SFM is that there is definitely something for everyone to see. While we spent at least three hours in the Experience Music Project, the rest of our time was spent in exploring the temporary Jim Henson exhibit, the uber geeky Sci Fi Museum, and checking out the Nashville based Hatch poster company’s collection of poster art.

Admission for the EMP/SFM is a little steep at $20 for adults and $17 for kids aged 5-17. If you plan on staying the day it’s definitely worth the admission price. If however, your family is just not that “into” music or science fiction, you may find that about two hours is all you can stand.

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