Listen - I love the NGV, and I'm there multiple times a year, free exhibits are always incredible, I think they're doing a wonderful job with the just about everything and you should DEFINITELY go.

... but I want to review the Pharoah exhibit specifically. It is an incredible collection with some of the most interesting ancient Egyptian pieces I've ever seen in one place. The music was amazing, and I think if you go during off-peak this review will not apply.

BUT. If you're thinking of going during peak, you should be aware that this will be a VERY frustrating experience and you will not get to see much. I missed about half of the exhibit, possibly more. I go to a lot of galleries/exhibits globally and this is the most aggravatingly designed exhibit that I've ever been to.

Usually, I love to read the blurbs/descriptions, but I got to read two.

There is no one guiding the flow of patrons, and the exhibit is laid out in such a way that there are loads of arbitrary choke-points that jut out into the path, which in turns creates clusters of crowds. The path itself is not a logical flow. There were times that I couldn't tell where I was meant to turn, which wouldn't be an issue if there weren't massive crowds to navigate (was there a limited number of tickets per hour? It seemed like everyone with a ticket for my hour showed up at the same time, and no one was making sure there were a limited number of guests).

There are exhibits that you need to go into a tiny room to see, where there are exhibits by the door so its entirely possible you can't enter at all (because again, there's no one keeping people moving). There are exhibits that are in the tip of a triangle format, where there are also seats, so not only can you not see anything you need to jump over other people's legs just to get out of the way. I felt really awful for the woman who used a rollator/walker to get around, some exhibits were unnavigatable. Usually I find it easy to tell what exhibits I haven't seen yet in a gallery but it really wasn't the case with this.

Don't get me wrong - this appears to have been designed to be beautiful to look at and I bet it is, in quieter times. The room with the sekhmet statues was breathtaking, but I have no idea what was at the end of it because it was hard enough just to leave the room. But some of these displays also double as tripping hazards, and the nature of the chokepoints means you almost certainly will miss things.

If you wear glasses you may also struggle with some of the mirrors/lightings as well, because they've really gone for style over accessibility here.

Given the price of this exhibit I'm really disappointed, but I think if you avoid peak hours you'll love this exhibit.