Even museums are subject to the forces of the market.
Wall Street Journal
July 28, 2006
It's been a hot summer in a controversial realm of museum finance: admission fees. Compared with public funds and gift-shop revenue, or foundation and membership support, dollars paid at the door contribute only a tiny amount to the budget of major museums. Even so, no topic generates more heat among the general public, especially when price hikes are on the horizon.
Just ask New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is about to raise its suggested admission fee to $20 from $15 on Aug. 1. There was howling this summer in Washington, too, when a Congressman wondered out loud during a funding hearing why the cash-strapped and increasingly dilapidated Smithsonian museums can't consider charging a token admission fee. Criticism compelled New York's Neue Galerie to drop plans for special $50 viewings of a newly acquired (for $135 million) painting by Gustav Klimt. Museums in Baltimore and San Jose, meanwhile, made dramatic changes in their admission policies.
Although the Met's announcement was followed by a lot of muttering about gouging, the price hike sounds sensible. It's all very well to complain that museums are custodians of our heritage and thus shouldn't charge to see examples of it. Yet the costs of insurance, salaries and utilities keep going up, and any contributions that the public may have made through taxes, or will pay at the door, don't come close to the price of keeping the place open.
Or do we want museums around only so long as they are "free"? In a world where people blithely spend $20 on a few cups of fancy coffee, carping about museum admissions implies that other trivial items are more valuable.
