The Fitz is an important and impressive museum, with a wide range of displays and collections. Despite this, many students never visit during their time in Cambridge—if they do, it is often with their parents.

The purpose of this event was to get students to come a museum they hadn’t ventured to enter before. In this sense, the event was a resounding, almost miraculous success. A Facebook group, a short article on Varsity’s website, and the promise of free wine, are all it seems that are necessary to rouse an army of enthusiastic rookies. One visitor remarked "it’s like a cross between Art and the Maypole".

But for visitors who had been to the museum before, the event didn’t offer much. In each gallery there were periodic talks about the artworks—interesting introductions, but these were often rushed and difficult to hear. The more ‘substantial’ talks the museum puts on at other times are more detailed (as one would perhaps expect).

These were complemented by some rather anomalous novelties. Two a cappella vocal groups, singing pop songs and the odd jazz number, seemed rather out of place and slightly inappropriate. Similarly, the caricaturist (who worked tirelessly in the midst of a seemingly endless queue of people, churning out one big-chinned grinning space-monkey after another) was an incongruous and probably misguided addition to the evening.

Still, I saw some things that I had previously missed—the wonderful new acquisition, Bruegghen’s Woman Tuning a Lute, an utterly beguiling image; and some stunningly serene and elegant Korean pottery.

If the event itself, with all its niggles, gets a low star rating, the museum itself ought to get five outright—and I urge you to go. The museum will soon lose 30% of its funding; students are now being involved more than ever in curation efforts (with the museum loaning out pieces to student galleries like the King’s Art Room); and above all, it’s free. Always has been.

So do go to the Fitz if you haven’t. There won’t always be free wine, but there will be the art.