With a captive audience of parents and children milling around the CBD looking to be entertained, we decided to offer free carriage rides to the exhibition, direct from the city centre, driven by a headless horseman.

The gothic carriage drew inspiration from Burton’s macabre and odd sense of humour in films such as Sleepy Hollow. Not only did the carriage create a visual spectacle around Melbourne, it also gave people a taste of what to expect from the Tim Burton exhibition. The target attendance numbers were ambitious 160,000 visitors in 110 days. This figure had been set by last year’s Pixar exhibition, which held the record for highest number of visitors in ACMI’s history.

The outdoor stunt generated huge attention amongst local press and media. Opening week visitor numbers swelled to 23,150, making it ACMI’s most successful opening week of all time.In one day alone more than 4227 people came through the doors, again setting a new attendance record (previous 3603).

In a 5-week period total visitor numbers were 109,000, compared to the target number of the Pixar exhibition in the same 5-week period of 62,000.

TIM BURTON: THE EXHIBITION has been the most successful in ACMI’s history.