Scrapping Admission Charges

Admission charges are a paradox. Unless you are one of 'the' museums well known to the general population, there seems to be a sense among the public that if you don't charge, your museum must not be worth much.

Of course, there are a few who will always whine about any admission charge, no matter how small.... or anything else that they can nitpick about. But those kind of folks don't exactly rush to a donation box either.

We've tried it both ways. When we had only a donation box, it didn't generate a lot of revenue, but every little bit helps. Then we tried a small admission charge ($2) and tripled what the donation box had been doing. Finally, we continued the admission charge and put the donation box back out front - and donations resumed at their previous level.

Our experience would seem to indicate that using both works best... neither will be a major source of revenue, but they will enhance your primary fund raising efforts.

So for what it's worth, there's our $.02 worth.... good luck. Joe Clay Director of Programs Koshare Indian Museum 115 West 18th Street, POB 580 La Junta, Colorado 81050

Local Calls: (719) 384-4411 Long Distance: (800) 693-5482 FAX: (719) 384-8836

After getting the AAM's MAT alert on the proposed, scary elimination of $90 million from the NEA, your move is somewhat a bold one. What would be the benefit of no admissions? Do you count with a foundation to support your normal operations and salaries? If you've got those two covered, I guess eliminating admission charges would help. There are a number of museums who operate on a donation basis only, I think the Timken Gallery in San Diego, CA still operates that way, and the Brea Gallery in Brea, CA does as well. But I would suspect they have city funding, and they are not in depressed areas. I would be very interested in the responses you get.

O Olivia S. Anastasiadis, Curator Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace Yorba Linda, CA 92886 (714) 993-5075 ext. 224; fax (714) 528-0544

We operate a regional museum and gallery in a city of about 55,000 people. The region is economically depressed and its inhabitants are, for the most part, from the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum. This factor, combined with a comparatively low visitation rate, have led us to consider doing away altogether with admission charges and possibly replacing them, instead, with a donation system.

Staff here feel that donations would probably exceed admissions income, although this is more an intuitive rather than a experiential assessment. Is anyone out there able to comment on what results we might expect, based on their recent experience of having abolished admission charges?

Mark Clayton Hawke's Bay Cultural Trut

Our situtation in North Bay, Ontario is quite similar to that you have described. However, due to the fact that admissions are not a significant portion of our annual budget we have chosen to use an admission by donation policy for the past year.

This has worked very well for us and we have actually taken in more money through donations than in charging admission. When donations are made they are usually larger than our admission charge and if the visitor is verbally reminded we use such an admission policy there is almost always a positive response. Furthermore, when no donation is made we have not upset that potential donor by requiring an admission fee.

With more satisfied people, more money and better attendance this has been a very positive move for us.

Ed Driedger North Bay Area Museum

writes Other museums in this position might like to follow the example of Sir John Soames' Museum in London, which used to, and maybe still does, run the following scheme: any member of staff/volunteer/whatever off on holiday can buy donated money at the current exchange rate. AND all members of staff/volunteers/whatever back from holiday donate any small change they bring back.

Obviously, this works well at places like Sir John Soames, where (non- British) visitors are mostly from places where staff (et al) are likely to go on holiday.

Now, if only lots of Dutch and Italian visitors started visiting Aylesbury ....

On the subject of donation boxes, I was in Glasgow recently and several of the museums there are using animated boxes that do something when you put money in, eg in Kelvingrove Museum & Art Gallery, ther is a model 'mummy' which sits up and speaks when you put money in, its made of recycled stuff & is made with a sense of humour - the work is called 'time flies' and there are two model flies made of alarm clocks which buzz & jiggle when fed money etc. Kids love it, it draws people towards it and it makes a noise you can hear all over the place so it drives staff mad. There have been technical hitches with this particualr one, but as a general idea, I think it's a good one.

JaneMs F.J. Sarre

Dept. of Museum Studies, University of Leicester, 103-5 Princess Rd East, Leicester

Until a few years ago, we had a 'donations' system. A survey was conducted and found that poorer families were not the ones foregoing the charge. It seemed like a matter of pride to them to pay their way. The majority of people not paying were college students, most of them from affluent families. They appeared to be not donating out of principle, rather than poverty (students wearing designer clothing and accessories wouldn't seem impoverished). This is one of many examples of the attitude that 'the world owes me' among college (undergrad and grad) students. The attitude seems to be rampant, and a poor justification for maintaining a donation system. Since the donation system was not benefitting the target group, it was decided to switch to admission charges.

Section of Birds, Carnegie MNH Pittsburgh PA 15213 USA