Last week I took the family to the Windy City to visit one of my favorite museums – The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

We have gone to the Museum a few times particularly to enjoy the impressive train layout that features HO scale trains within a Chicago model that stretches halfway through the large museum.

But last week we went specifically to experience “The Harry Potter Exhibition.”

“The Harry Potter Exhibition” is a traveling exhibit showcasing the props, costumes and set pieces of the six Harry Potter films. (The sixth in the series, “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” opens in mid-July.) The exhibition is open in Chicago from now until September.

My son Will gets to try on the Sorting Hat!

My sons are big fans of the books and the movies. So they were very excited to check out the exhibit. We purchased our tickets a couple months ago. The tickets are hard to come by as you have to purchase specific time frames as they limit the number of visitors through the various rooms.

The actual exhibit is housed in a specially built structure constructed in the front of the museum.

You enter a special room that features the sorting hat, the magic hat that selects students into the various houses at Hogwarts.  My youngest son was invited to try it on. He was placed in Gryfindor House! Yea!

I did snap a picture of that. But pictures are not allowed throughout the exhibit and that is a shame.

From there you then walk through various exhibits of costumes and props. Two highlights: Hagrid’s Hut and the area featuring the bad guys, the Death eaters and Vodemort.

With the volume of over six movies to choose from, there was a little bit of each movie represented. (Though I wouldn’t have minded more on how they do the special effects. For example, just how do they make Robbie Coltrane, who plays Hagrid, look so big on screen?)

One of the hands on exhibits in the Harry Potter Exhibition

You walk through samples of Harry’s dorm, various classrooms at Hogwarts, a Quiditch area, Hagrid’s Hut, the Riddle graveyard, and the Great Hall of Hogwarts.

We spent well over an hour in the exhibit so we found it was an enjoyable time.

Be warned though parents…you have to leave through a special Harry Potter Gift Shop…and nothing is cheap! (Even the magical Chocolate Frog candies will set you back about six bucks!) 

I thought it fun. A suggestion…they rent special radio/audio tour devices that let you learn more about the various sites in the exhibit. I was a little underwhelmed with the information I learned on the audio tour. I didn’t think that part worth it.

Warner Bros. did a similar road show for “The Lord of the Rings.” It came to the Indiana State Museum a couple years ago. I thought that exhibit was much, much stronger and more informative to the overall movie-making experience. 

It’s too bad they did not learn/take more of that experience for the Harry Potter Exhibition!