The Sydney Mint Museum closed on 19 June after fifteen years of operation.
 This was said to be largely due to falling visitor figures, and it was
claimed that we dropped from 150 000 to 25 000.  This was far from the case,
but it certainly made us look like a disaster.

Our maximum visitation was back in 1988, the bicentennial year, when we had
free entry, museums were flavour of the decade, and about 140 000 people
came (we were also still paired with the Hyde Park Barracks museum next
door).

After we lost the Barracks to Historic Houses Trust, and went into
hibernation, our visitor figures dropped, and dropped and dropped.  In 1994
we closed for a year for massive site expansion and refurbishing.  We
estimated a hopeful 65 000, based on our good years, but in fact never met
that expectation.  We should have been warned by an evaluation we undertook
which showed considerable indifference to our existence.

Competition in our area  (Hyde Park Barracks, Museum of Sydney, Australian
Museum, Art Gallery of NSW and others) plus rising entry charges and
increasing public apathy all helped keep figures low.

In our second year we suffered a marked drop in attendance, ending up with
about 33 thousand  where we had hoped for at least 45.  However this year we
were beginning to see a turn-around, with steady increases each month (up
15-20% on 1996), and consistent and increasing bookings for the education
programs.  Given the over-all drop in museum attendance, our increase was a
great boost for us - though it did us no good.

There were, of course, other, behind the scenes factors.  In the end,
Historic Houses Trust found themselves with a wonderful prestige address for
their head offices in a major heritage building, and the staff and
collections reverted to the Powerhouse.

Definitely a happier ending than the Baltimore experience!  (Well, anything
is better than unemployment), but still a major cultural loss.
 ----------
From: daemon
To: MUSEUM-L
Subject: Re: An obituary (a small rant) (fwd)
Date: Monday, 30 June 1997 1:03PM

>    Good news about the article you are planning on museums that
>overestimate on attendance.  I hope that you will include the Valentine
>in that article.  I know that this situation is not entirely parallel
>to the Baltimore one, but the most interesting situation of all really
>is the one in which a museum, having just undergone a major expansion,
>almost immediately implodes.  Are they cases of poor planning (they
>forgot that it's easier to raise money to build things than to operate
>them) . . .

Or, is the Valentine a case where totally inadequate market research (or,
none at all) led the museum down a path doomed to failure?  Perhaps
enough time has passed so that an objective article on what happened at
the Valentine could be written.  Certainly seems to be an object lesson
for us all.

Oh, and John Strand:  You might want to consider writing something on the
trend for public museums to "privatize".  Although the Milwaukee "Public"
Museum is perhaps the best example, there are plenty others, including a
prime example in SD.

Claudia Nicholson
Curator of Collections
Museum of the South Dakota State Historical Society
Pierre

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