In 2006, I complained that the “State of North America’s Art Museums” survey, which the Association of Art Museum Directors released annually from 2002 to 2011, was “frustratingly incomplete.”
Fast-forward to Art Museums by the Numbers, a six-page infographic released by AAMD last week, which makes earlier AAMD surveys seem like a mathematical PhD theses. (You can see the 2011 survey here.)
As in 2006, AAMD has interpreted the latest figures as evidence that “museums are stable,” in the words of executive director Christine Anagnos, as quoted by ARTnews.
But the only way to judge “stability” would be to compare this year’s results with those in prior years. That was done in the pre-2012 surveys, which quantified the dramatic impact of the 2009 recession on revenues. Important measures of “stability”—changes in income, expenses, programs and attendance (not to mention operating surpluses or deficits)—are nowhere to be found in this year’s survey.
That may soon change, however: “Our goal,” Anagnos told me last week, “is to begin providing trend data based on the new survey tools, starting with Year Two of ‘Art Museums By the Numbers.’”
For now, we have to settle for a series of colorful infographics, including this one, summarizing “Average Sources of Revenue & Support,” which some have seized upon to perpetrate the myth that admission fees constitute an insignificant portion of total funding:
“Admissions revenue comprises only [emphasis added] 7% of the total average revenue for art museums,” AAMD’s report states. (That figure is seen in the lower left of the above graph.) This rhetoric may be seized upon as evidence that admission fees are expendable by those who believe they should be eliminated (a view recently espoused by the LA Times‘ Christopher Knight).
Jillian Steinhauer made that leap of illogic in her analysis of AAMD’s statistics for Hyperallergic. She observed that the 7% from admission fees is “a low figure that seems to underline the argument for doing away with entry fees altogether and making museums free.”
Not so. That 7% of revenues and support provided by ticket sales is part of the budget-balancing equation for many museums. What’s more, the 7% figure significantly understates the importance of ticket sales to those museums that actually charge admission fees. As I confirmed last week with Anagnos, AAMD added up the total revenues of all 220 surveyed museums, including those that don’t charge admission, to arrive at the 7% figure.
The only meaningful way to see how important admission fees are to the museums that charge them is to calculate the percentage of revenues attributable to admission fees at the museums that actually have admission fees. (Maybe next year…)
Although free admission is undeniably a worthy goal, some museums would be hard pressed to do without that source of revenue. That said, access should be increased as much as possible. As I noted in a previous post on admission fees, I’d like to see free entry for everyone 18 and under, because young people—the audiences that all forward-looking museums need to cultivate—are the most likely to feel intimidated at the gate. (The LA County Museum of Art currently does give free admission to all those under 18.)
Museums should also aggressively seek financial support for regular free-entrance hours, such as those that are sponsored by Target at many cultural institutions.
What they shouldn’t do is alienate audiences by bumping the price of adult admission from $0 to $18—the announced intention of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, effective this April. The IMA argues that its visitors “do not like paying for parking and key programs like [special] exhibitions separately” and notes that the new fee will be all-inclusive. (The current Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition (to Feb. 15) for example, charges $15 on Tuesday-Thursday; $20 on Friday-Sunday.)
Photo by Lee Rosenbaum
But those who are not attending a special exhibition and most of those who park at the IMA will suffer extreme sticker shock: There is already considerable free parking at the IMA (as evidenced by they sign at the right in my photo from 2009); a mere $5 is charged only for use of an underground garage or for the outdoor lot closest to the museum. What’s more, the parking fee (obviously) covers all passengers in the car, all of whom will soon have to fork over the individual admission fee.
The museum’s suggestion that visitors might prefer paying one (very high) fee to cover everything just doesn’t add up. Its financial-exigency argument, advanced by director Charles Venable (who took over from free-admission advocate Maxwell Anderson in 2012) is somewhat more convincing.
The museum’s spokesperson, Connie Dyer, told me this:
Building a sustainable financial foundation for the IMA is a major motivating factor for returning to a general admission policy. The IMA receives less that 1% of its revenue from government sources and in the early 2000s typically took less than 5% from its endowment earnings to cover operating expenses.
In 2005-06 the IMA opened a large new expansion. In 2007 the IMA’s draw rate from its endowment was 8.12% [very high, compared to most art museums]. In 2012 the Board set a goal of returning to a spend rate of no more than 5% of investment earnings by 2017. The target for the current fiscal year is 5.99%. Also, for the first time, the institution is paying both interest and principal on its outstanding $121 million in bond debt.
To meet these obligations and to support the annual operating budget, donated and earned income streams must rise. Since 2012 both have grown and the implementation of general admission and especially the anticipated rise in membership revenue [emphasis added] should accelerate this trend.
It sounds like IMA is betting that far from alienating its audience, the sudden imposition of a steep admission fee will induce many more visitors to become members (at a cost of $55 for individuals and $75 for families).
I’m not sure they can bank on that.