Our museum holds parties on average once a week, more for exhibit openings (there are already over 5 events planned for the opening of our Bruce Dayton Chinese Collection exhibit) and we have never had a problem. We usually hold the parties in an area of the museum that has a minimum amout of art, or that art that is around is covered by Plexi. BUT, we also have in house event staff and catering, this can help temendously because they can be on hand to supervise and clean up (plus THEY stay late to clean up), we also post guards at the points of access to the rest of the museum (we usually close MUCH of the museum except the area where the party is taking place) to restrict food and drinks from entering vulnerable gallery spaces. These parties can be great fund raising efforts, and they can be a type of "reward" to those who give alot of $ to the museum. Perhaps you can defer the cost of the event onto the group that wishes to hold the event. For example, if you wish to hold a party it will cost x for the catering, y for security staff, z for janitorial staff clean up, ect. Lastly, I would pehaps use this as an opportunity to convince the board to bone up for greater protection of your collection (Plexi, guards, etc.) Hope this helps, Jason Onerheim Minneapolis Institute of Arts Security On 18 Jun 2002, English, Susan wrote: > My Gala Ball committee doesn't understand why I do not want to permit eating > and drinking in the permanent and temporary galleries of our new museum > opening this Fall. I have told them that this is against museum standard > practice and that if we allowed it, may hurt our chances for accreditation, > Smithsonian affiliateship, and traveling exhibitions. Their response to me > is that if The Downtown Chicago Museums can do it, why can't we? > > Does anybody have any other suggestions as to how I can convince them that > this is not the route to go. > > Susan English > Joliet Area Historical Museum > ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).