Free entry to national museums highly valued

21 July 2009

The fact that the gallery is free gives a sense of ownership

VAGA welcomes the recent report issued by the Art Fund (http://www.artfund.org/) Free to see - but what's next?, produced in collaboration with The Work Foundation.

Since free admission was introduced in 2001 visits to previously charging national museums and galleries have more than doubled, from 7.2 million eight years ago to 16 million last year. Recently released government figures show visits to all national museums and galleries are at a record high for the third year running, with more than 40.3 million such visits recorded last year.

The key findings of the report, which reveals the results of two 'citizens' workshops', held at Manchester Art Gallery and The National Gallery, London, show:

• that free admission to galleries is highly valued and is important in making public ownership of the nation's art real in people's minds. Even if people didn't regularly visit themselves, they felt free admission was valuable to society as a whole.

• seeing art 'live' was an overwhelming experience.

•participants linked the collection with civic or national pride, and the role of public collections in representing our shared history and holding it in trust for the future was valued.

The research also revealed that other barriers still exist and that free admission does not of itself mean people think museums and galleries are places for them to visit and there are still many social and educational barriers to be overcome.

VAGA worked with the Art Fund, the National Campaign for the Arts and BECTU on the Free for All campaign in support of the introduction of free admission to National Museums in 1998.