How lucky can a Muggle get? Very.

A few weeks ago I opened an invitation to the preview reception for the world premiere of Harry Potter: The Exhibition.” I instantly followed the instructions to RSVP “by owl or online.” Fortunately, the party was at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, where I live.

Then last night, I got to go—by Honda, though, not by Hogwarts Express. My companions: two Harry Potter-philes my daughter Gigi Kerber, 9, and her friend Lili Griffiths, 9. (Lili brought excellent credentials: she has read all seven Harry Potter volumes 11 times.)

We were not disappointed. (The one exception: the overpriced gift shop, where a half-ounce chocolate frog cost $3.99. But more on that later.)

First, like the other 1,000 or so party guests, we put on our “V.I.M. Very Important Muggle” badges. Then, while waiting for our 5:45 p.m. viewing time, we nibbled chocolate frogs, snagged a couple of balloon dragons and chatted with museum staff members, who were wearing scarlet and gold scarves for the occasion. (“Gryffindor colors!” said Gigi.) The girls passed on getting their faces painted with Harry Potter lightning bolts and glasses. So much free food, so little time to eat it.


Potter fans Gigi Kerber and Lili Griffiths, both age nine, outside Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.

Inside the exhibit, a black-robed woman stood by a sorting hat and asked three people (including Gigi!) where they belonged. Gigi said Gryffindor, but the woman demurred: “You’ve got that Ravenclaw sparkle.” Fortunately for Gigi, a deep, recorded sorting-hat voice agreed with her and intoned “Gryffindor.”

We moved to a room with movie clips shown inside picture frames (a technique used throughout the exhibit), and then we walked by the steam-emitting Hogwarts Express. Like the other 200 or so “artifacts” on loan from Warner Bros. Entertainment for the show, it’s the real deal that is used in the movies. (The up-to-date exhibit even includes items from the sixth movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which opens July 15.)

We proceeded then, very slowly, past prize items such as Ron’s taped wand—one of 16 wands in the exhibition. (A card helpfully reminded non-Potter-buffs that the wand was broken when Ron and Harry “crashed the flying car into the whomping willow during Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.”) We also admired the howler Ron received from his mom after he stole his dad’s flying car. (Plenty of signage on that one, too.)


A Gryffindor Quidditch uniform on display.

Like the other artifacts in the black-walled exhibit, these were beautifully presented on wooden platforms. Small items such as wands and golden eggs were covered with glass, but costumes such as Cho Chang’s, Cedric Diggory’s, Victor Krum’s and Hermione Granger’s “yule ball attire” were inches away from us and protected by only ropes or wooden rails. (I hope no mischievous little ones come armed with Sharpies.)

Throughout the exhibit, we got a Cliffs Notes version of the Harry Potter tales on museum signs. For example, the plaque next to Harry’s school uniform said: “Harry Potter is known as ‘the boy who lived’ after Lord Voldemort attempted to kill him as a baby.” The card by Hermione’s artifacts told us that our heroine used her time turner “to travel back in time and save Sirius Black and Buckbeak in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” And the sign by Voldemort’s wand told us it is “made of yew with a phoenix tail feather core. It is linked to Harry’s wand by virtue of the fact that the same phoenix (Fawkes) provided the feather for the core of both wands.” Signs also reminded us that Hufflepuffs were “known for their loyalty, patience and hard work,” and that Slytherins (hiss!) were “known for their cunning and shrewdness.”

The signs were too basic for hard-core fans. But overall, they were a good reminder for people who have never read the stories (horrors!) or who have read them once, not 11 times. It was nice to know that I was looking at the “chair and desk used by Harry Potter during his detention with Professor Umbridge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.”

The exhibit is like a trip down memory lane (or inside Dumbledore’s pensieve!). It’s hard not to sigh when you see Professor Gilderoy Lockhart’s wand and “published works.” A few exhibits give clues about the magic in the movies. Gigi excitedly noted that Professor Trelawney’s eyeglasses were actually magnifying glasses. But overall, as the exhibit’s producer Eddie Newquist told me afterward, “The exhibit isn’t about how the Harry Potter movies are made. We want it to be a celebration.”

And it is fact a celebration of the movies—no J.K. Rowling manuscripts here. Instead, signs note plot details and the names of actors who portrayed each character. The exhibit—produced by Becker Group in partnership with Warner Bros. Consumer Products—is explicitly about the Harry Potter movies rather than the books. But Newquist reassured me that “all the filmmakers are inspired by the written word.”


A model of Kreacher from the Harry Potter films.

Gigi and Lili especially enjoyed the two interactive exhibits, where they got to pull out and “re-pot” Mandrakes, and toss quaffles. They also loved being allowed to sit in Hagrid’s humongous chair. (Their favorite “interactive” experience: playing with the state-of-the-art motion-sensor foam soap dispenser in the museum bathroom.) Alas for these candy lovers, one non-interactive exhibit was the Great Hall, with items from Hogsmeade—the Honeyduke’s chocolate frogs, the Puking Pastilles and the Nosebleed Nougat. (All were under glass.)

A few tidbits: well-trained staffers all speak in British accents (faux or real). They engage kids by asking them questions. For example, a male staffer asked Gigi and Lili if they knew how to open the Book of Monsters. But of course! They told him that people need to stroke it “so it likes you.” Staffers wouldn’t cough up any secrets. When the girls saw Hagrid’s huge costume, they asked how the actor could be big enough to fill it. The staffer told them, unsatisfyingly, that “he had to eat a lot.” The girls also wanted to know how moviemakers got the fake animals to move for the movies. No dice.

It was great fun to see the tiny costumes—such as Harry’s tan corduroys and red sweater worn when he confronted Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone—from the early movies. Moviemakers are using different, larger costumes for Harry and his friends in the seventh movie, which is currently being filmed. (If they need any of the artifacts in the exhibit, they can simply ask for them to be shipped back, says Newquist, the exhibit’s executive producer. “It’s a very living, breathing exhibition.”)

Educational, too. Every day the museum will also offer owl-pellet dissection. It wasn’t an option at the party because of museum staff didn’t want to “upset anyone’s stomach” during a party with food and drink, explained Anne Rashford, director of temporary exhibits and events at the Museum of Science and Industry.


Kids pulling Mandrakes in an interactive exhibit.

Caveat emptor: the exhibit ends with a overpriced gift shop. The girls gasped when they saw a chess set for $499.99. Fortunately, there were also more reasonably priced Harry Potter books, CDs and DVDs on sale. When I asked the girls if they’d tweak the exhibit in any way, Lili helpfully responded, “I would change the gift shop being so expensive.” (She also said it “would have been nice” if the exhibit told people about how the special effects worked in the movies. Newquist said, though, that he and Warner Brothers “don’t want to pull back the curtain too much.” An audio tour, not available last night, will explain more to guests curious about the magic behind the movies, which have grossed $4.5 billion at the box office so far.

Gift shop prices aside, who can resist another excuse to revisit Harry Potter? The exhibit is also a nice reminder that Harry, Ron and Hermione, warts and all, are wonderful role models. As Gigi happily told me at the end of the exhibit, “I love how Hermione’s the smartest one, and she’s from a Muggle family!”

It was easy to see why the Museum of Science and Industry, which previously hosted exhibits for Titanic and Star Wars, beat out dozens of other museums worldwide for this launch. “We are giving our guests a front-row seat to the imagination and inventiveness of J.K. Rowling and the filmmakers,” said Rashford.

And they’re doing it in a big way: the exhibit is so big (10,000 square feet) that it’s housed inside a temporary “tent” on the museum’s front lawn. It took a dozen 53-foot semi-trucks to bring the exhibit to town. (The movies are mostly filmed outside London. But the exhibit was built in Los Angeles and then moved to a Chicago area warehouse.)

Can’t make it to Chicago between today, when the exhibit opens, and Sept. 27, when it closes? The next city (and perhaps cities) will be announced within the next month, said Newquist. Phew. Plenty of time to book a flight—and re-read the stories.

For more information and to buy timed-entry tickets, check out www.msichicago.org or www.harrypotterexhibition.com or call 866-231-8328 or 773-684-1414. Tickets are $26 for adults, $25 for seniors, and $19 for children ages 3 through 11. Hours are 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sunday. Leave cameras at home: they’re not allowed inside.