The ROM Celebrates Halloween Weekend, October 25 and 26

Brave the Bat Cave, preview your costumes, and meet some creepy-crawlies!

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) presents Halloween Weekend on Saturday, October 25, 2008 and Sunday, October 26, 2008. Young visitors are invited to try out their costumes and enjoy a special lineup of Halloween-themed fun, including ghost tours and Halloween crafts. Activities take place from 11 am to 4 pm and are FREE with ROM admission. In addition, ROM visitors to Halloween Weekend will be among the first to view the newly-opened exhibition The Nature of Diamonds, presented by De Beers Canada, the most wide-ranging display ever developed on the allure of diamonds.

After meeting the ROM’s dinosaurs Gordo and Gertie on the ROM Plaza, visitors can experience a ghost tour and spooky stories as they travel through the Museum’s Bat Cave and other galleries. A selection of live creepy-crawly insects are on display in the Patrick and Barbara Keenan Family Gallery of Hands-on Biodiversity on Level 2. On the main floor, children can create Halloween crafts to take home. For further information visit www.rom.on.ca/programs/rom_kids or call 416.586.5549.

October 25 and 26 is also opening weekend of The Nature of Diamonds, an exhibition exploring humankind’s ongoing fascination with the diamond. Approximately 500 brilliant objects provide an in-depth examination of it as a natural substance, digging into its geologic origins, how it is mined, its cultural significance in art, literature, and ornamentation, and its numerous uses in modern science and technology.

The Nature of Diamonds is organised by the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), New York in collaboration with the ROM; the Houston Museum of Natural Science; and The Field Museum, Chicago. Exhibition curator is George E. Harlow of the AMNH’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. The exhibition is on display until Sunday, March 22, 2009. For more information visit www.rom.on.ca/exhibitions.