Museums are becoming more expensive

“IT’S ALMOST a moral duty that museums should be free,” said Glenn Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). That was in 2002, when a ticket to MOMA cost US$12 (around US$19 in today’s prices). In October, MOMA started charging US$30, the latest in a series of price rises.

MOMA is not the only museum raising the cost of admission. The Metropolitan Museum in New York ended its longstanding “pay what you will” policy for out-of-town visitors in 2018 and raised general admission for them to US$30 in 2022. Last summer, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum and the Guggenheim Museum all followed suit, bumping a standard ticket from US$25 to US$30.

Museum staff complain of climbing costs and a case of “long Covid”. In America, only a third of museums have met or surpassed pre-pandemic visitor numbers. Higher energy and labour costs have pushed up ticket prices in Europe, too. In January, the Berlin State Museums, the Louvre and the Vatican Museums, which include the Sistine Chapel, raised the price of general-admission tickets by 20 per cent, 29 per cent and 17 per cent, respectively. Prices have remained stable only in Asia and the Middle East, where museums are younger and state funding is especially generous.