From January 31, 2025, visitors, Australians and foreigners, will have to pay 20 dollars (12 euros) to enter the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. This amount increases to 35 dollars (21 euros) if visitors wish to have access to temporary exhibitions. However, under 18s and students will still be able to enter for free.
It was in May 2000 that the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, under the direction of Elizabeth Ann MacGregor, introduced free entry. This measure was made possible thanks to a partnership with the Australian company Telstra. This new admission policy proved positive, with an increase in the number of visitors: from 44,000 between June and November 1999 to 121,000 for the same period in 2000. The museum’s revenue is provided by the State up to of 4.2 million dollars per year (2.5 M€, 14% of the museum’s annual revenue), as well as through donations and commercial activities (80% of the remaining revenue).
But the economic crisis of 2009, the renovation of the museum in 2012 and the Covid-19 pandemic in 2019 all happened. A 2020 report indicated that the closure of the museum during the pandemic resulted in a reduction in its revenue of more than $4 million (€2.4 million). Generating a deficit of 2.6 million dollars (1.56 M€) in 2023 which the museum is struggling to absorb, due to state funding which has stagnated since 2008. In order to restore its accounts, the museum has already opted for a closure of one day per week. But this is not enough “our current financial situation does not allow us to maintain free entry. The introduction of an entry fee will allow the museum to remain viable in the future,” the museum explains to the Guardian.
To predict the impact of this measure on attendance, the museum can rely on reports from other institutions that have also taken this approach. This is the case of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (Met). While until 2017 it benefited from a policy of free entry with a “suggested” participation, the Met made entry paid for tourists in 2018. Against all expectations, this change did not have no impact on attendance at the museum, which even increased during this period: some 7.36 million visitors in 2018, an increase of 5.1% compared to 2017.
Located on the edge of Sydney Harbour, the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia opened its doors in 1991, thanks to a donation from the artist John Power (1881-1943). The permanent collection has more than 4,700 works of art and is Australia’s only public collection dedicated to living artists, more than a third of which are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists.
