Suddenly the pressure seemed on to create a project with huge audiences to justify even the tiniest sums of money. I bit the bullet and re-applied stating that I would make sure the exhibition was suitably exhibition-like and well attended within the museum (my original ideas had involved displays and interventions in the much smaller store rooms of Jewry Wall, and giving tours to a relatively small audience), quoting the walk-in audience figures on the New Walk Museum (which had provisionally agreed to exhibit the work) as several thousand over a 6 week period.
I was invited to Derby by my contact at Renaissance East Midlands, to have a look around the Derby museum and art gallery, as a possible location for the second stage of the project. Despite a show in Derby not being relevant to Leicester archaeology, they proposed that the project should get the needed support if I exhibited there in Late 2008. They suggested that the project could be created from museums across the region. It was my turn to nod and provisionally agree.
