When it opens after 15 months of marketing hype, “Unzipped” will not only be the biggest, most expensive exhibit ever hosted by TheMuseum, but the fulcrum for a slew of companion events/exhibits that will, Marskell insists, benefit the entire region.įirst and foremost will be “Reverberations | Our Rock & Soul Legacy” (opening Nov. How the hell did Kitchener get this? I’ve impressed myself, which is huge!” “Now that it’s unloaded and coming to life in our building - 12 53-foot trailers - it’s enormous,” insists Marskell with trademark hyperbole. Within five years, he had transformed this noble, sputtering failure into a cultural powerhouse, embracing crowd-pleasing exhibits like “Titanic” and “Avatar,” turning it into an all-ages mecca for pop culture, tech and everything in between.Īnd as the world emerges from the worst pandemic in a century, and people venture tentatively back into public spaces, he’s hinged its economic recovery on what seems like the closest thing to a sure bet: the World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band. When the former marketing manager at Toronto’s Canadian National Exhibition took the helm of what, in 2006, was the Waterloo Regional Children’s Museum, it was on the verge of financial collapse, appealing to a grade school clientele with poorly attended exhibits that were sinking it further into debt. Let’s be clear about one thing: if not for his ambitious attempts at pursuing, procuring and promoting out-of-the-box attractions that push the envelope, there probably wouldn’t even be a museum on Kitchener’s King Street, let alone one bringing in world-class attractions like “Unzipped.”
And having a shot at marketing one of the biggest bands in the world, I’m not embarrassed. I’m trying to sound as humble as possible but my background is in marketing. “We’ve already sold $200,000 in tickets and 60 per cent are from outside the community. “This is going to bring tens of thousands of people to this community,” he says of “Unzipped,” which will chronicle six decades in the life of the Rolling Stones with vintage guitars, costumes, a recording studio, photographs, videos and original art work when it touches down at TheMuseum Nov. He knows what it takes to run a modern-day museum in a fast-growing Canadian city. Give Marskell credit: he doesn’t stand on ceremony. “I went up in a small four-seat Cessna to film it,” he trumpets proudly. He was - ahem - in a chartered plane right behind it. No, he informs me politely, he wasn’t flying the damn helicopter.
So when I joke with the tireless pitchman about the preposterousness of this notion, I’m surprised when he responds with an awkward silence, followed by a nervous laugh.
As if the head of a major cultural institution overseeing a million-dollar budget would be flying a helicopter to advertise one of his own exhibits. When a helicopter tugging a humongous banner to promote the Rolling Stones “Unzipped” exhibit flew along the Lake Huron shoreline last summer, people who know him joked that David Marskell - proud proprietor of Kitchener’s TheMuseum - was probably in the cockpit, working the controls.