A post on the American Theater Wing’s blog, by Howard Sherman (hat tip to You’ve Cott Mail for pointing it out), got me thinking about a parallel — and possible solution — for museums.
Sherman wrote, lamentingly, about the common desire for a short running time.
If you are a regular theatergoer, you are undoubtedly in the habit of ascertaining, before you see a production, what the running time will be….undoubtedly you have found yourself cheered, more than once, when your inquiry results in the answer, “90 minute, no intermission.”
It is the cheerfulness which concerns me. I am not entirely certain when the tide turned towards the single-act play (and in some cases musicals), but they seem much more prevalent of late….In recent weeks, I have noted an articulate and enthusiastic theatre tweeter lobbying for exactly that – that all plays should be unbroken and brief….
[But] let’s not create a producing and theatergoing environment in which only the brief can survive. We need plays of every shape, size, subject and length if the theatre is to remain alive and vital.
Museums don’t have that problem, exactly. Visitors can come and stay for 20 minutes or all day. But there’s a catch: that equation changed as museum admissions have ratcheted up to $20 (MoMA, MFA-Boston), $18 (the Whitney, the Guggenheim, the Art Institute of Chicago), $16 (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Denver Art Museum [see comments below]), $15 (Seattle Art Museum), etc.
People who pay those prices are probably committing to a longer visit, which is good — unless it keeps some people away.
That’s why I liked what I saw, by chance, when I recently visited MFA in advance of the opening of its new Art of the Americas wing. General admission at the museum is a very steep $20, but included in the price is “one free repeat visit within ten days.”
Such a deal may exist elsewhere, but I’ve never seen it. It’s great idea. It may well boost attendance, turning one-time visitors into repeaters, and it obviously allows the time-challenged an opportunity to stretch their dollars further. I doubt that MFA loses a lot of admissions fees this way, and what it gains in good will probably makes up for that.