ASTC 2026: The Future of Traveling Exhibitions

Find Flying Fish at Booth 301

The Flying Fish team will be on hand throughout ASTC to reconnect with familiar faces, meet new colleagues, hear what’s happening at institutions around the world, and talk all things traveling exhibitions.

Whether you’re filling a future exhibition calendar, looking for an experience that can reach a new audience, exploring a potential collaboration, or simply wondering what Flying Fish has been working on lately, we want to hear from you.

Find the team at Booth 301 to connect, talk all things exhibitions, and see what’s next for Flying Fish.

A Look at What’s Ahead

We’ve added several new experiences to our portfolio: exhibitions that reframe the world around us, from the remarkable world of pollination and the shadows of international intelligence to a forest that comes alive when the sun goes down.

At ASTC, we’ll be sharing more about what’s coming in 2027, 2028, and beyond.

Here’s a preview.

Nocturnal animal in flight with red feed flower. Wildlife action scene from tropic nature, Costa Rica. Night nature, Pallas's Long-Tongued Bat, Glossophaga soricina, flying bat in dark night.

Powerful Pollinators: Small Creatures. Massive Impact.

Imagine entering a world alive with movement, color, and connection—where some of the smallest creatures reveal just how interconnected life on Earth really is.

Powerful Pollinators brings visitors face-to-face with the tiny but mighty animals responsible for one of nature’s most essential processes.

Moving from the intricate biology of a single flower to the ecosystems and food systems that depend on pollination, the exhibition reframes a familiar topic on a much bigger scale. Visitors discover the surprising diversity of pollinators, explore the relationships between plants and animals, and uncover just how much of the world around us depends on their work.

Dynamic, multisensory, and rooted in science, Powerful Pollinators invites audiences to see pollination differently—not as a process happening quietly in the background, but as an extraordinary network of connections happening all around us.

Produced and toured internationally by Flying Fish in collaboration with the One Hive Foundation, Powerful Pollinators premieres Summer 2027.

Silhouette of a woman standing in front of a wall displaying various images, A digital display of intercepted communications being analyzed by intelligence agents

Espionage: Secrets Are Only the Beginning

Mention espionage and it’s easy to picture gadgets, disguises, and larger-than-life spies.

Espionage goes beyond the “spy.”

This new exhibition takes visitors inside the real world of intelligence, where information is power, decisions carry consequences, and the people working in the shadows must constantly navigate questions of trust, risk, ethics, and responsibility.

Through authentic objects, hands-on interactives, immersive environments, and compelling stories, visitors explore the people, tools, methods, and skills behind intelligence operations. The exhibition uncovers what happens to information as it moves through the intelligence cycle, from collection and analysis to the decisions that can ultimately change history.

Rather than asking visitors to simply play the spy, Espionage asks something more interesting:

What would you do with the information?

Produced and toured internationally by Flying Fish in collaboration with the Virginia Museum of History & Culture, Espionage brings the realities of intelligence work out of the shadows beginning Spring 2028.

Man and child at museum exhibition Good Night Forest

Good Night Forest: When the Sun Sets, the Forest Comes Alive

Not everything happening after dark is meant to stay hidden.

In Good Night Forest, visitors step off the trail and into a woodland transformed by night and listen for animal calls, share stories around the campfire, experiment with light and shadow, and take on the role of a forest caretaker as they explore the hidden rhythms of the nighttime forest.

Through authentic natural history objects, hands-on exploration, imaginative play, and beautifully crafted environments, families investigate the remarkable adaptations that allow nocturnal animals to navigate, hunt, hide, communicate, and thrive when the lights go out.

The experience blends natural history and science with the sense of wonder that comes from exploring a forest after dark, giving younger visitors opportunities to observe, investigate, play, and discover at their own pace.

Produced by the Indiana State Museum in collaboration with Minnetrista and toured internationally by Flying Fish, Good Night Forest brings a playful new natural history experience to the Flying Fish portfolio.

And we can’t wait to introduce more institutions to what happens when the forest wakes up.

Beyond the Crate: Talking About the Future of Traveling Exhibitions

Of course, moving Forward isn’t only about what we create.

It’s also about asking where the traveling exhibition industry itself goes next.

On Friday, September 18, Flying Fish will host colleagues from across the field for the Beyond the Crate: The Future of Traveling Exhibitions panel discussion, a forward-looking conversation about collaboration, longevity, and the evolving role of traveling exhibitions.

Touring exhibitions have always been about more than moving objects from one loading dock to another. At their best, they allow institutions to expand what’s possible: bringing new stories to their communities, extending the reach and life of great ideas, sharing resources and expertise, and creating experiences that may not have been possible within a single institution alone.

But the landscape continues to change.

What does meaningful collaboration look like today? How can producers and venues build exhibitions with longer, more sustainable tours? How do we create touring models that work better for institutions, audiences, partners, and the stories themselves?

Those are conversations worth having—and ASTC is exactly where we should be having them.

Family enjoying a the sensory cooking experience at the Julia Child: A Recipe for Life exhibition

Feed Your Curiosity at Arizona Science Center

There’s another reason this year’s ASTC feels particularly special to Flying Fish: attendees have an opportunity to experience one of our exhibitions for themselves.

Julia Child: A Recipe for Life is currently on display at Arizona Science Center, ASTC 2026’s host institution.

The exhibition invites visitors beyond Julia Child’s familiar television persona to discover a story driven by something the science engagement community knows well: curiosity.

From the life-changing meal in France that sparked Julia’s fascination with French cuisine to the years of testing, failing, adjusting, and trying again behind Mastering the Art of French Cooking, visitors discover a woman whose success was rooted in experimentation and an extraordinary willingness to keep learning.

They can explore the pioneering television set of The French Chef, investigate the science and techniques behind cooking, and see how Julia transformed not only what Americans cooked, but how they learned about food.

Her story is joyful, unexpected, and deeply human. It is also a powerful reminder that curiosity rarely follows a straight line.

ASTC attendees receive free museum admission on Wednesday, September 16, making it the perfect opportunity to experience Julia Child: A Recipe for Life while you’re in Phoenix.

Members of the Flying Fish team will be there, too, so come explore the exhibition and say hello.

Conference promotional image with speakers

Forward Starts With a Conversation

New exhibitions are exciting. New ideas are exciting.

But one of the things we value most about ASTC has always been much simpler:

The people in the room.

The conversations between sessions. The unexpected introduction. Hearing what another institution is trying, what audiences are asking for, what challenges teams are facing, and what ideas are beginning to take shape.

Those conversations are often where “what’s next” actually begins.

So whether you’re mapping out your exhibition calendar for the next several years, considering a new partnership, looking for a particular experience for your community, or just want to catch up, come find Flying Fish at Booth 301.

Tell us what you’re working on.

Tell us what’s keeping you up at night.

Tell us the big idea you haven’t quite figured out yet.

We’ll bring a few ideas of our own.

We’ll see you in Phoenix. Let’s move Forward, together.