The need to attract paying customers concentrates the minds of museum and gallery directors upon the needs of the public and produces imaginative and popular exhibitions, as well as adding value through guided tours, lectures and tie-ins with television programmes. All of this ensures that more people, not less visit museums. In addition, if museums were made entirely reliant upon public funding, it is likely that money would be channelled to those institutions the government felt were most important, forcing smaller, local or more specialist museums to close.
Nazi Germany also points to the dangers of allowing politicians control over interpretations of national identity and presentations of other cultures. Television is not an adequate substitute for widely accessible museums. At a museum a visitor can choose what to see and for how long they wish to study it; television is a much more passive medium making the viewer dependent upon the interests and interpretation of the producer — it is likely to present sensationalist and controversial material in a bid for ratings, for example.
Nor can a two-dimensional medium compare to viewing an object, even a flat painting, from many different angles, or even handling it, in a museum. Today television plays a much greater role in transmitting our cultural heritage and a sense of national identity.
Usually free to the viewer, it reaches into almost every home, both rich and poor. It is a far more effective way of reaching a mass public than expensively subsidising every museum on the off-chance that people will enthusiastically flock to them. Children may have free entry at many museums, but parents are often charged high prices, deterring family visits, especially from the poor and from those families who do not prize education so highly. Again, this is an equal opportunity issue, being one of the reasons why middle-class children outperform their less-privileged peers academically.
Clearly this is a question of balance, as the government cannot afford to fund every activity of possible value, especially given the social and economic costs of increased taxation. It is reasonable for governments to focus their attention upon schools and higher education in an attempt to provide more equality of opportunity. Could this put off people on lower incomes? Is free always better? In Europe, the UK is an exception when it comes to entrance fees, as many renowned museums across the country, such as the National Gallery, the British Museum or the Tate Gallery, can be visited completely free of charge.
But does free admission automatically mean that more people from different backgrounds visit museums? And how should cultural institutions finance themselves, if not through ticket sales? What do our readers think?
The business model of many cultural venues in Europe is based around footfall and maximising ticket sales. Can big cultural venues like museums, galleries, and concert venues return to their old pre-pandemic business models, or will they need more government support in future? Do they also think that museums need more state support? The pandemic has just accelerated things.
Is he right? Should museums be free to the public, particularly if we move towards a post-pandemic world with fewer in-person visitors overall? Finally, the past few years have seen a growing discussion over the cultural sector and how diverse perspectives are included and represented.
It educates us, opens our eyes and, ultimately, makes us better humans. And that opens opportunities, evident in all the children you see getting their little minds blown by dinosaur skeletons at the National Museum of Natural History. Knowledge and art, like air, should be free to all. So much is already so off-limits to so many, including expensive cross-continental travel. I only see potential for positive change. As the National Endowment for the Arts continues to get cut off at the knees, arts funding—from a variety of sources—is more important than ever.
The Attendance Question Does eliminating admission fees boost attendance? What do you think? Should—would— could —museums be forever free? Share this on social networks.
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