It’s not just the premise of a Hollywood film starring Ben Stiller – magic really does happen after dark at the museum. Liz Nicholls rounds up some of the highlights of tomorrow’s Museums At Night event.

In case you’ve missed the whispered sweet nothings on the sleek flyers, or Lauren Laverne’s understated tweets, museums at night are ultra-cool.

The joy of being somewhere usually out-of-bounds and the inventiveness shown by the curators of this city’s gems combine to make the national event an alluring twilight zone – whether you’re a museum fan or not.

This year, the after-hours allure is cranked up with free multi-sensory events sure to rival the thrills and spills of any city hotspot tomorrow night.

The Oxford University Museum of Natural History and Pitt Rivers Museum in Parks Road, Oxford, will host Museums In Tune from 7-11pm with DJs Noel Lobley and Rupert Gill. They will mix up an eclectic set, including samples of recently digitised recordings from the Pitt Rivers sound archives. Original? You bet. Soak up the sounds with a drop of local ale, wine and soft drinks in the kaleidoscopic hues of Pitt Rivers – it beats any bar hands down on atmosphere alone.

While there, channel your inner pagan thanks to Rosie Fairfax-Cholmeley and Robin Wilson, artists in residence at Wytham Woods. The pair will lead adults in creative activities around the theme of trees, recycling and sustainability – sure to be a big hit in this green heart of the South East.

The Ashmolean in Beaumont Street offers A Grand Tour. We’ve all seen the optimistic pre-Olympics adverts urging us to embrace a UK staycation (family feuds optional), but this really delivers. From 6-9pm adventurous families can pick up their free passport and trot the globe with fun curator tours and the chance to grab a peek at the new exhibition The English Prize: The Capture of Westmoreland (tickets £9/7, free for kids and Oxford University students).

The atrium will host live orchestral music and the dining room and rooftop terrace will serve fresh fruit cocktails and a tapas-style menu, as well as snacks for kids too peckish to wait for midnight feasts.

Also at the Ashmolean, marvel at artist- in-residence James Hudson’s Metamorphosis – a series of 16 monochrome photographs inspired by Ovid’s poems. And the results are unsettling, with the boundaries between visitors and objects blurred. Think viewers merging into artefacts: an experience laced with a slug of classical culture.

Super sleuths can take those finely honed skills along to Wallingford where the intimate High Street museum is hosting an Agatha Christie thriller evening. The medieval oak-beamed hall will offer some spooky surprises and makes the most of the connection to its most celebrated neighbour. Crime and Murder at The Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock is similarly dark, with crime talks, a CSI team, search-and-rescue and a chance to follow those killer clues to solve a grisly death.

And if the final frontier appeals, take a small step to The Vale and Downland Museum in Church Street, Wantage, which hosts a Space Is Ace! event from 7-9pm to explore space scientists, robots and films spanning the half-decade of UK space exploration. And the excellent Museum of the History of Science in Broad Street, Oxford, will expand on the history of astronomy with an astronomical workshop from 7-11pm.