Size counts

The annual Art Newspaper listing of museum attendances throughout the world has just been published. Based on last year’s figures, Te Papa would come in at a very respectable 18th with an attendance of 1,856,962. The rub is that many of the museums on the list, indeed nearly all of them, have entry fees (shouting a couple of people into MoMA in January stung us for a card-wrenching $NZ175). In terms of individual exhibition attendance, Te Papa is hoping for around 220,000 for its “blockbuster” Monet exhibition over 92 days, or 2391 a day. Neither the projected daily rate or total attendance would make it to the global top 20 but, given the small audience base, it would probably score high on a per capita basis. Te Papa is hoping to attract as many people as the Art Gallery of New South Wales did. You can download the full Art Newspaper report on pdf here.