Denver cuts staff, blames free admissions

In yesterday's Denver Post, John Wenzel reported that the Denver Art Museum is laying off staff. You remember the DAM: They just built a big new Libeskind.

The reductions amount to 14 percent of the museum's staff. The museum's explanations are goofy, ranging from blaming bad weather to other factors. (Memo to DAM: If your budget is so precarious that you need six days of sunny weather in December to maintain staff levels...)

Amazingly, the museum's explanation gets even goofier. Here's DAM's communications director on the other reason for the budget problem: "We accommodated almost 34,000 people in our opening weekend with free admission, so we're making adjustments for the popularity of those free programming days."

Oh really. Well, first, who decided to open free in the first place? Uh, that would be the Denver Art Museum.

Next: How much gate revenue did that cost DAM? Admission for Colorado residents is as follows: adults are $10, seniors $8, youth $3. Members visit free. I can't imagine that having a free opening weekend 'cost' the museum more than $200,000 in admissions revenue. (The musueum's budget is in the $25 million range.)

And that doesn't account for likely higher-than-normal gift shop and cafe revenue during that weekend. So how is it that letting people in for free, which earned the DAM a ton of free publicity, and probably didn't end up 'costing' the museum more than $150,000 after you account for gift shop and food revenue, force them to lay off or buy-out 38 staffers? To put that in context: That's about five-tenths of one percent of DAM's annual budget. (Oh that Wenzel had called the museum out on this, but in this era of he-said-she-said journalism many reporters print what they're told without questioning it.)

Apparently Denver planned badly. And blaming a free opening weekend is simply lame.