An apology for this tardy contribution to what is by now a tired topic,
but....

Two things to consider about admission fees.  They tend to reduce incidents
of random, malicious or accidental vandalism and they also impede the free
access to the cultural patrimony of all of us.  (I have seen the word
"parimony" used as gender neutral alternative, but for now I'll use the
more common term with understanding that it is inclusive and not just a
reference to the guys.)

To start with an assumption I've always made, the art, artifacts and
natural phenomena exhibited in museums should be as available as the air we
breath.  Museums have evolved as the institutions which distill the
physical evidence of our cultural achievement as community, a civilization
and a species.  They collect, preserve and display prized examples  for the
benefit of current and future generations.  To limit access to, and
familiarity with, the best a society has to offer is the social equivalent
of limiting a child's access to its parents.  With no admission fee you
stop by the museum for ten minutes on your lunch hour to see a painting you
enjoyed yesterday, and do it again tomorrow.  You don't just tell your
friend to see an exhibition, you go with him.  Is the mall really the best
place for the kids to hang out?

Unfortunately, most governments, local, state and federal don't agree.
With the exception of the Smithsonian and a few other places, somebody
other than the society at large has to pay the bills.  And, to paraphrase a
famous sage, culture don't come cheap.  In the resulting scramble for
income the user becomes an obvious target.  All the usual arguments apply:
you pay for movies; money spent equals value received; etc. In addition,
eliminating admission fees does not just dry up that particular income
source, it adds to the costs of security and maintenance, assuming that
enough people come to make a difference.

Admission fees usually comprise less than half the total revenue, and in
most museums far less than that.  If they were to carry the full cost of
running a museum, ticket prices would be as high as those for Broadway
shows, seventy to eighty dollars, but hardly anyone would come.  Museums
have been clever enough to substantially subsidize most of the expenses but
not that last bit collected at the gate.  That gap in revenue that is
filled by admissions is hard to bridge by other sources in part because it
counts as earned income, which most supporters love to see, and partly
because of the bizarre notion that going to a museum is the social, moral
and economic equivalent of going to a theme park, and if people pay for one
they should pay for the other.  One is about Mickey Mouse, fantasy and
profits for Disney, the other is about reality, humanity and building a
civilized society.

A couple of examples from my experience in eliminating admission fees might
be useful.  At the Whitney Museum of American Art a close working
relationship was established with the Helena Rubinstein Foundation, a major
sponsor of the graduate level Independent Study Program.  It was not very
difficult to encourage them to recognize the confluence of their objectives
in that selective program with fostering greater attendance at the museum
by all college students.  A survey of current and projected attendance led
to an estimate of lost revenue and added expenses of free admission for all
college and university students.  The Foundation took that sum, added costs
of administering and advertising, and made a renewable annual grant of the
resulting amount.  It then was a relatively easy step to get the sponsor of
Museum's Youth programs to do the same for all High School students.  The
net expanded.  Employees of corporate contributors, teachers senior
citizens,  were included.  Of course this still left most folks paying at
the door, but, like Al Gore's targeted tax cuts, it helped some.

At the Branches of the Whitney, at the IBM Gallery and at the Old Pueblo
Museum, corporate sponsors were convinced that the benefits of free access
furthered their objectives more than the income generated by a barrier at
the gate.

David Hupert

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