Admission fee
The popular practice of museums opening their doors to visitors free of charge once a week may soon come to an end. According to an amendment to a bill from the Ministry of Culture is currently working, the right to free admission to museums one day per week will be limited only to permanent exhibitions.
Currently, anyone visiting any museum can get free entry to all exhibitions on a certain day of the week. However, if the amendment is passed, visitors would have to pay the regular price for all temporary exhibitions - which usually attract the largest audiences - every day of the week.
"We are just trying to help museums survive. Because of limited financing, they can't afford to have visitors to some of the exhibitions for free," Tomasz Merta, Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Culture, told the Wprost weekly.
Large cultural institutions such as the National Museum in Warsaw and Zachęta Art Gallery will potentially benefit the most from the amendment. During the most popular exhibitions such as "Impresjonici" (Impressionists) and "Magia Złota" (Magic of Gold) the National Museum reported a loss of zł.30,000 on a free-of-charge day. "As a budget institution we are pleased to hear about this amendment, but we are also worried as the free Thursdays attract around 40 percent of our audience for the week," says Zachęta's Olga Gawerska.
Zachęta offers free entrance every day of the week for art students and discounted tickets for families and seniors. The gallery is already considering a limitation of free days to one a month and attracting sponsors for these days, a solution that has been successfully implemented by some the Museum's partners in Western Europe.
