London Walking Tour Part 2/ Serial Killer Exhibition

Part 1 is here.

By the time we got to the Serial Killer exhibition, we just had a short wait of about 20 minutes. Certainly, the venue was ideal and very suitable for such an exhibit in an old and run-down industrial location. We were booked for a 16:30 visit and allowed ourselves a couple of hours to tour it.

I will be the first to admit this is more of my wife’s interest, but I was still, of course, curious. The site is fitting, with the Vault at London Waterloo as the venue. An old, slightly decrepit building set within railway bridge arches. This exhibition is temporary and tours the world. It opened in December and finishes this January. Suitable for those over 14 and contains adult themes. Those under 14 need to be accompanied.

https://www.thevaults.london/serial-killer-the-exhibition

The exhibition works it way through rooms detailing information about the killers. Many artefacts and supporting text, photos, illustrations and interactive elements. Certainly the tour is informative and while they recommend 1.5 to 2 hours, to read the lot and take it all in, you would likely need more time. Like most exhibitions these days, they go for the timed ticketing experience where you book your time slot and date. You then enter as a timed group and once you have cleared the initial entrance displays about what classes as a serial killer, the route and traffic start to ease.

The exhibits have scanable barcodes that link through to an audio track. You just need to make sure you bring your headphones with you. My wife did find this a little cumbersome constantly having to scan and gave up doing this. However, this did not really prove an issue as many boards have write ups of the killers and the exhibits that you are viewing. Certainly the reproductions of deaths and artifacts are good though can be graphic as you would expect from an exhibition of this nature. You also get to see some real items that belong to the killers and real diaries/pictures etc. Some of the reproductions are quite large and include house set pieces and even cars to demonstrate how certain killers operated.

The issue that I have with the exhibition is the same as most similar exhibitions these days. As they travel, they are normally only available to view for a couple of months, therefore, extremely busy. Throughout the exhibition were a couple of bottlenecks. The first probably could not be helped as everyone is going in at the same entrance time, and the entry rooms are quite small. The next bottleneck was perhaps half away around the tour where some interact large touch screens caused one area to be quite congested. This issue would have been alleviated if the screens were placed at the end of the tour in a large corridor area that also housed some interactive VR systems.

While the idea of interactive elements is good, the touch screens give you very limited time to answer questions, making it extremely hard to answer. You barely have enough reading time and need to answer almost immediately. In part, this is likely to allow everyone a turn but perhaps indicated that they need more screens positioned in an area that does not affect the flow of traffic. While I did not use the VR, my wife thought it was quite grainy and did not add any value other than to look around a setting of the killer.

As you would expect, the tour finishes with a souvenir shop. Some of the items being quite expensive for what they are. The souvenir guide did look good though for £16 and did include many pictures and write ups from the tour.

Overall, for fans of learning about famous serial killers, it is an informative experience. However, if you wish to attend, you only have a few more days before it closes. Tickets needing to be purchased in advance.