Cutting Hours Makes Dollars and Sense

As someone in the field of arts administration, I’m always interested to learn how arts organizations manage and cope with the challenges they face. In the August 30 Kansas City Star, the article announcing that The Nelson-Atkins Museum will close on Tuesdays in order to save costs caught my eye. Before this change, the museum’s doors were closed to the public on Mondays only, a schedule followed by many visual arts institutions.

The Nelson-Atkins continues to be free of charge to the public, except for some special exhibitions. The article mentions the Tuesday closing as a way to help maintain free admission, a big part of the museum’s mission.

Other institutions could easily claim that the economy is just too weak right now to justify having a museum that’s free of charge. My cousin, who works at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, visited Kansas City recently and took a trip to the Nelson-Atkins – she was greatly impressed, and couldn’t believe that she didn’t have to pay a dime to get in! She was curious as to how such a large institution could run without admission revenue, even given the generous support that it receives from private and government funders. Museums and other cultural institutions exist for the benefit of the public – how nice that the Nelson-Atkins’ benefits can be enjoyed free of charge.

Arts organizations must make many difficult decisions and compromises in order to stay afloat. I applaud the museum’s decision to decrease their hours, rather than increase admission costs, in order to survive in these challenging times.