When asked the question, “should museums be free?” my first thought was of course they should be! I was under the same impression as Sebastian Modak who wrote in Condé Nast Traveler, “Knowledge and art, like air, should be free to all.”
Being born in Chicago, I grew up loving to go to museums, especially The Art Institute. My parents or school would take me for the day and I always had great experiences. Today, I still regularly frequent art museums and when I travel, I make it a point to see multiple museums in each city I visit. When traveling through Europe in 2019, I had an itinerary of each museum we were visiting and how much each museum would cost. To my knowledge, none of the museums were free. But this didn’t matter to me, I felt the same way as Erin Florio, who also wrote in Condé Nast Traveler, “Twenty-five dollars is peanuts to pay for an afternoon admiring treasures"
So, is the charge in fact necessary? Well, in terms of art museums, the entrance fee might be less of a factor than we think. According to LA art critic Christopher Knight, “nationally, admission fees make up only about 5% of the general operating budgets for art museums. And if you have other streams of income on the premises (such as concessions or a gift shop), that money might make its way right back to you through another channel,” (Free Museums? The Pros and Cons).
Clearly, admission costs alone cannot sustain a museum, but 5% can be the difference between selling off important artwork or cutting back staff. Some museums have figured out ways to subsidize ticket prices by offering student and senior discounts and having days that are free to the local public, something that The Art Institute does frequently. The main question when it comes to admission cost is whether or not free admission would attract more museum visitors and potentially a more diverse group of people. If the answer is yes, then museums would definitely have more of a reason to offer free admission.
Unfortunately, people like myself which comprise the cohort of people considered ‘Museum Visitors’ are a seemingly generous 32% of the American population, according to They're Just Not That Into You: What Cultural Institutions Need to Know About Non Visitors Data. However, this data defines “Cultural Institutions” as zoo, aquarium, museum, historic site, symphony, theater, ballet, etc.
So, from that definition, the optics vary by location. For instance, using the CSO, the general expectation would be seeing them at Symphony Hall would probably be expensive, but seeing them right across the street in the Grant Park bandshell would probably be free. Museums don’t have these optics. They are confined to a static location and they must grapple with the cultural perception of education vs. entertainment.
Meaning, a family of four with two children under 10, are much more likely to spend their entertainment dollar on going to Shedd Aquarium, where non-resident general admissions for a family of four would be $139.80, a price most are willing to pay, knowing their children will be entertained, and perhaps educated simultaneously. Whereas, going to the MCA is free every day, but is it really a consideration for the proverbial family of four from Flossmoor?
So, as always, there’s more to the data than meets the eye. However, if the goal is to expose more people to, what I will call the fine arts, will free admission actually do that?
Before we answer that, let’s take a look at demographic data. Impacts Experience, a website that does museum market research, has posted, “Let’s Talk Freely About Free Admission – Does It Really Impact Who Visits?” In their data collection, they wanted to find out the difference in household incomes, ages, and racial backgrounds in visitors that attended free museums vs. paid museums. According to their research, the difference in average household income was not even statistically significant, the average age difference was six months, and the percentage of non-white museum visitors was between 27% and 34% for both paid and unpaid museums.
As Impact puts it in their article, “The things keeping new audiences from free museums are the same as those keeping audiences from paid admission museums – and cost is the 14th biggest barrier for those with interest in attending.”
In conclusion, they make the claim that being free is not the same as being welcoming and there are several barriers to entry that museums face that must be looked at before asking the question of whether or not to charge admission.
So, if cost is way down the list of biggest barriers, what are the top reasons why people do not want to attend museums, and is there any way to become more inclusive/inviting?
In They’re Just Not That Into You: What Cultural Organizations Need to Know About Non-Visitors - Data, they used a process called lexical analysis to determine the top barriers to entry by asking open-ended questions and categorizing their answers based on weighted values. Among the 38% of unlikely visitors, the Top 3 barriers to visitation were:
A preferred alternate leisure activity (i.e. sporting event, movie, etc.)
Attitude affinity perceptions (“not for people like me”)
Negative precedent experience
In terms of the first barrier, it is clear that most people would simply rather do something else than go to a museum. If museums were more interactive and employed programming that resembled popular leisure activities, then maybe that would attract more visitors. Take for example, the Immersive Van Gogh exhibit, where people from all over the country got excited about a room full of painting projections. Museums that offer more interactive experiences can potentially get more unlikely visitors in the door.
The second barrier is so much more difficult, because it points to issues regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion. As the article put it, “Current visitors to cultural organizations are largely educated, wealthy, and white – and, indeed, cultural organizations are often regarded as places for ‘a certain kind’ of person.” If someone from outside this demographic does not feel welcome in a museum setting, they are not going to want to go whether or not it is free. Museums have been aware of this for years, but now they are being forced to confront these issues internally and externally.
Finally, the negative precedent has its root in childhood experience. The data shows that 60% of recent museum visitors attended them as children. Childhood experiences help cultivate active adult visitors. But it’s not just getting kids in the door that counts!” Engaging programming for children is vital for the future of museums if they want more visitors. Overall, as Impact puts it, “Being welcoming involves weaving values of diversity, equity, and inclusion into the fabric of the experience and organizational culture – and celebrating thoughtful, targeted access programs that actually work.”
Therefore, admission revenue, that all-important 5%, is something that can help fund these programs and inspire a culture where these values are intrinsic to the organization. Rather than asking ourselves whether or not museums should charge admission, we must ask ourselves how to increase engagement through other various channels because the data clearly shows that free admission is not the be all, end all.
That’s why I don’t think museums should be free, especially if they need paid admissions to fund new programming revolving around diversity and equity. Free days and discount days must continue, however, to address consideration in the purchase funnel of consumer leisure activities, and free admission for students and/or children must be considered for any museum’s long-term growth strategy.
However, the real question should be, how do we get unlikely visitors in the door? How do museums create a more welcoming environment for all people? By employing various new methods and targeting their unlikely visitors, museums can expand their audiences and become cultural hubs that reflect the world around them. If 4 out of 10 Americans do not feel welcome in a museum, we need to tackle that issue before simply waving admission fees.
SOURCES
https://www.cntraveler.com/story/why-all-major-museums-should-be-free