The British Music Experience

The British Music Experience is an interactive attraction in the O2 arena. Taking the form of video walls, interactive displays, a dance booth and a guitar studio, the emphasis is very much on playing with the buttons. There are also physical exhbits - Freddy Mercury's suit, Ian Anderson's flute, Guitars belonging to The Who - that kind of thing. Your ticket has some sort of a chip in it that records whatever you are interested in and stores it on their website so you can check back later - useful when your eyes are going googly - but make sure you touch every single time because it is the individual thing, not hte whole showcase, that will be stored.

Technically, it focusses on the last 60 odd years of British popular music, although obviously that is a very wide remit and it does focus more on guitar based pop than, for example, bubblegum manufactured music. From my point of view that is great. But then, I always came out in a rash when forced to listen to anyone's Steps or Hear*Say albums. More annoying is the relative absense of bangra, grime or hip hop - yes, American Readers, there is such a thing as British hip hop. You wouldn't necessarily know about it from the BME, except for a brief section on Massive Attack, but there we go!

Disabled access should be easy, although I don't know how much you would get out of the video timelines if you were severely visually impaired.

Admission is about £15, which is quite pricey even by British standards, but I think it is worth it if you like music. There are concessions for students and so on. On the day I went, it wasn't very busy - I don't know if that is a deliberate policy or if it was because it is Easter, but it was definately possible to get right up to all the exhibits and see everything well.