Obama’s in the White House and the sun is shining, but money continues scarce for art museums, which are all (nearly all) engaged in serious cost-cutting. The question is not, who’s cutting back, it’s how they’re doing it.
AJ blogger Judith H. Dobrzynski exhibited a fine grasp of this issue in her post, Museum Hours: Time for a Change.
Cutting back on evening hours seems clueless, and self-defeating.
A few museums do seem to get this basic fact. When Seattle Art
Museum recently cut hours, it announced that it will be closed on
Tuesdays, beginning the week of Sept. 7 — but according to its
website, SAM remains open on Thursday and Friday nights until 9 p.m.Who else is on this honor roll?
Addressing the same issue, Jen Graves at the Stranger takes a harsher approach:
After Labor Day, Seattle Art Museum will be on a five-day rather
than a six-day schedule, meaning it will be closed not only Mondays but
Tuesdays as well.This is an attempt to cut costs, said spokeswoman Nicole Griffin,
but also an effort to focus more on late-night activities at the museum
on Thursdays and Fridays, when SAM is open until 9. “The feedback we’ve
gotten is that people want these late-night hours, but we’re not seeing
the traffic,” she said. “Right now we’re going to be trying to promote
those Thursday and Friday nights till 9.”Hmm. At least some of that is spin, since it requires a logical
contortion to need to save money so that it can be spent convincing
people to want something they’ve already said they want. But what do I
know about marketing?I suppose missing Tuesdays isn’t that bad, but what about adding just a few hours on the other end, say on Saturday nights?
Only in sports do hometown writers appreciate the home team.
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