I wrote yesterday about museum pricing strategies, and while catching up on what happened while I was away, I was pleased to discover some good business sense at the Smithsonian Institution. At three of its most popular museums, hours will be extended to 7:30 p.m. during tourist-heavy spring and summer months, in an effort by the new Secretary Wayne Clough to try to increase revenue.

Most Smithsonian museums close at 5:30 p.m., but now the Museum of American History, the Museum of Natural History and the Air & Space Museum will stay open two hours longer most days through Labor Day.

So, kudos — and a strawberry — to Clough.

This wouldn’t work for all museums: the added costs would be too high. More important, traffic patterns differ from city to city, museum to museum. Yet as with pricing, there’s room at many arts institutions — not just museums — for experimentation with hours to maximize convenience for museum visitors.  

 

Just back from a wonderful trip to Turkey, I have a lot of material to wade through before I begin reporting and commenting on developments in the arts here on RCA. 

But while I was gone, Forbes Magazine published an opinion piece I wrote about museum pricing, which was triggered by the announcements awhile back by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Philadelphia Museum of Arts that they would raise prices.

I understand, and sympathize with, their quandary. But raising prices in a recession might hurt more than it helps, especially if the hikes are substantial. Besides, museums don’t get much of their revenue from the gate.

That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t attempt to manage the gate. In my article, I argue that some may want to try variable pricing — charging people more for various times. The Neue Galerie attempted to do this in 2006, with the exhibition of Klimt’s “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I,” but gave it up after public outcry about the $50 tickets. I’m sorry they backtracked; I think they should have tried it, at least long enough to assess its potential.

And I think museums should know more about pricing and try new strategies to raise revenue from those who can, and will, pay more for a better experience.

You can read the whole article on my website here.

 

I have come to praise UNESCO, that sometimes criticized arm of the United Nations. I recently learned of a terrific program it has, started in the ’90s — when the U.S. was not a member — but with a very low profile.

It’s called the Memory of the World Register and, as I wrote recently for Smithsonian.com, perusing it is like taking a quick guided tour of global culture.

The Memory program is like UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites, except it’s for manuscripts, films, maps, sound files, textiles and so on.

Here’s a link to my Smithsonian article — be sure to explore the Photo Gallery and Video Gallery adjacent to it.

This is my last post for a while — I’ll be on a trip until mid-April.

 

When I commented on a story in The New York Times about foundations possibly picking winners and losers among non-profits during these less-than-flush times (here), I quoted the president of the Hudson-Webber Foundation, David Egner, who mused about whether Detroit needed separate orchestras at the Detroit Symphony and the Michigan Opera Theatre. The remark elicited a big flurry and strong negative reaction in Detroit.

Additional reporting on what Hudson-Webber — and presumably other foundations — may do turned out to be not-that-threatening.

Yes, there could well be mergers among arts organizations, and there probably should be.

But that’s not what Hudson-Webber is attempting at DSO. Rather, it has started a “transformative initiative” at the DSO and the Detroit Institute of Arts (an eye-candy detail from DIA’s “Detroit Industry” fresco, by Rivera, below) that could be good for them. 

[Read more…] about This foundation move could mean more stable arts funding

One of the most intriguing booths at the AIPAD Photography Show in New York last weekend didn’t offer anything for sale: For the first time, the George Eastman House (right) was at the fair, here from Rochester to tell people about a new joint-venture with the Rochester Institute of Technology called “The Center for the Legacy of Photography.”

The Eastman House booth offered an
exhibit called “Cause & Effect,” a series of vintage photographic prints from its collection that provided insight into “historic cause-and-effect relationships of materials and processes.” For example, there was an early salt print by the partners, David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, that was shown adjacent to later prints in platinum and carbon. And there were several prints of Lewis W. Hine’s Powerhouse Mechanic (left), again showing how the choice of material and process changed the aesthetics of the image.

The exhibition provided a window on the Center’s mission…

[Read more…] about From the George Eastman House: A New “Legacy”