Tut is a big draw right to the end

With only one weekend to go, the Franklin Institute wanted to cram every last second it could into its nearly eight-month King Tut exhibit.

So it did just that.

The doors to Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs have been open since Friday morning at 8:30, allowing visitors to come calling at the throne of the legendary boy-king at all hours.

The traveling exhibit closes to the public tonight at 11.

Although getting into the show during the day would be nearly impossible, Karen Corbin, the Franklin Institute's vice president for programs, marketing and business development, said Tut fans still had a chance to see it by buying tickets at the museum during the day for the show at night.

"That's why we stayed open," Corbin said. "We didn't want it to be overcrowded."

Since opening in early February, the exhibit has shattered attendance records. As of 5 p.m. yesterday, 1,284,766 people had seen Tut, nearly 30 percent more than the museum originally predicted.

Corbin estimated that the final attendance would be 1.29 million, making the show the most-visited traveling exhibit in the country this year and the second-most-visited traveling show in U.S. history, behind the King Tut exhibit in Chicago in the late 1970s.

Even with the show's runaway success, one more question needed to be answered about Tut: Could the 3,000-year-old pharaoh get people to come out in the middle of the night to see him?

Turns out he could.

Between midnight and 7 yesterday morning, 652 people filed into the museum to get a chance to see the show. "There were never fewer than 100 people every hour," Corbin said.

At the museum yesterday afternoon, Sarah Paradise, 26, of Lodi, N.J., said going to see the exhibit at night seemed like a pretty good idea. "I would have probably rather come at night because it wouldn't have been so crowded," she said.

Paradise, who was at the show with her sisters Grace and Camille for Camille's 36th birthday, said she was most impressed with the ancient headdresses and jewelry. "It's really awesome," she said. "I really like it a lot."

Lewis Orr, 44, is a teacher in Warsaw, N.C., who just finished covering Egyptian history in his world-history class. He flew in to see the exhibit yesterday morning with his two daughters, his fiancee, and two colleagues who wanted to catch the show before it heads to London, where it will open in a few weeks.

So would Orr have been willing to see Tut late at night if he couldn't get tickets for a day show? "Oh, yeah," he replied.

Orr's fiancee, Stacy Anderson, 44, said she was impressed with the entire exhibit. "All of it, even the smallest pieces, are interesting," she said.

"It's really interesting," said Elysa Zinn, 17, of Mechanicsburg, Pa., who was at the show with her parents. "All the details - it's all still intact."

Marilynn Burke, 65, of Mount Airy, missed the original show in the 1970s, but made it to this year's exhibit with her 7-year-old grandson, Kimmon Patillo.

Kimmon gazed in wonder at the beautiful, bright golden Coffin of Tjuya. He was happy, but wanted to see more.

"I wish they had one that opened up!" he proclaimed.