Museum Prices
How much is too much?
Museums occupy a unique place in public life. They, along with libraries, are classic examples of “Third Places”, which is a place other than home or work where people can congregate. Museums are also non-profits, and unlike some hospitals and universities, they are not non-profit in name only. The vast majority of museum employees seem generally interested in their museum’s subject matter. They want visitors to fall in love with the exhibits and learn about a new subject.
This leads to a tricky question. What should a museum charge for entry? On one hand, regardless of their non-profit status, museums have bills to pay like everyone else. Staff need to be paid salaries and benefits, buildings need to be maintained, and all that air conditioning isn’t free. A lot of the labor for a museum isn’t going to be cheap, either. A front desk worker might be a minimum-wage employee, but someone restoring a painting needs to be an expert. Otherwise, disaster can result. On the other hand, museums do wish to be third places and to be accessible to the entire general public.
Where should the line be drawn?
For many years, I have followed the “Louvre Test”, which is as follows: If your museum charges more than the Louvre, then your admission price is too high. As of this writing, the Louvre charges €22, or about $23.50. Museums that charge more than that should lower their prices. Unfortunately, most premier American museums fail the Louvre Test. As written in the New York Times, the standard admission at many premier American museums is now $30. This is a decent chunk of change. A family of four with two high-school-aged children would have to pay a whopping $116 to visit the Art Institute of Chicago.
Now, to be fair, the Louvre does get a substantial chunk of its annual operating budget from the French government. An employee of the Guggenheim in Los Angeles, which charges $30, could reasonably argue that they can’t be expected to compete with the Louvre because they receive less than one percent of their annual budget from the government, while the Louvre receives around half. That is a fine counterargument, but I think the Louvre Test still stands. Why? Because it’s the Louvre. Yes, the Louvre gets a good chunk of funding from the state. But it’s also widely regarded as the world’s greatest art museum. It’s also by far the most visited, with an attendance of over a million above the number two museum, the Museum of National History in Washington (which is supported by the federal government of the United States, and is free). On balance, the Louvre Test holds. Yes the Louvre receives a lot of state funding, but it’s also the greatest museum in the world. Charge less than the Louvre.
It’s also a bit of a mystery as to why museum prices are so high. The Guggenheim charged just fifty cents when it opened its doors in 1959, equivalent to $5.40 today. The Met in New York had a voluntary pay policy until 2018 when the price went from gratis to $25 overnight. Across the board, museums are charging more than ever. The standard reason is the costs are rising, so admission prices must rise as well. At least at the Met, the sixth most visited museum in the world, this rationale doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. According to this article, charging a mandatory entry fee is expected to raise $6 million in additional revenue. That might sound like a lot, but it’s only about two percent of the museum's annual operating budget. It pales in comparison the the $65 million that was recently spent on two new fountains outside the front doors.
There must be some ulterior motive here. Charging a high admission price to increase revenue by a couple percent doesn’t make any sense. Does the museum want to get rid of the riffraff and is too afraid to admit it? Do they want to appear to be exclusive? Are they just practicing bad economics? I honestly don’t know.
Museums continue this trajectory at their peril. Yes, the Smithsonian and Louvre receive a lot of government funding. But many other museums are constantly pursuing $100 million (and higher) renovations and additions. Coupling this with high admission prices is not a good look. In a time when ever-more entertainment can be accessed in the palm of one’s hand, if museums aren’t careful some will go the way of the dinosaurs within them.