New York’s Museum of Modern Art has announced that it will raise admission prices effective October 16. Adult admission at the door will rise to $30 from $25, while seniors and visitors with disabilities will pay $22, up from $18 previously. Students will shell out $17 instead of $14. Those purchasing advance tickets online will pay $2 less than the amounts named above. Film admission will rise by $2 per ticket as well, with adults now paying $14, seniors and attendees with disabilities paying $12, and students parting with $10. Film tickets purchased online are subject to an additional $2 surcharge. Children under sixteen may visit the museum and attend films free of cost. For reference, the new cost of an adult ticket is equal to a bit less than two hours’ pay for a guest assistant employed by the museum, and slightly less than an hour’s pay for a MoMA manager.
“As we carefully prioritize every possible measure to deliver innovative exhibitions, public programs and strengthen our attendance, revenue, and staffing, these changes in admission prices will help the Museum maintain financial stability,” said MoMA director Glenn D. Lowry in a statement. “Our goal is to ensure that MoMA continues to offer an extraordinary experience to the nearly three million visitors we welcome each year to connect with the art of our time.”
The increases mark the first time the museum has raised ticket prices since 2011. The price hike is in line with those instituted in recent months by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Whitney Museum of American Art, and by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The country’s highest adult museum-entry ticket prices can be found at the Art Institute of Chicago, which charges out-of-state visitors $32. MoMA, like its compatriots across the country, pointed to surging operating costs, as well as to the crushing effects of the global Covid-19 crisis, from which most if not all institutions are still recovering. As well, the museum completed a $450 million expansion just months before the pandemic struck, and only fifteen years after it ponied up $858 million for a previous expansion. When the institution opened in 1929, admission was free to all.