How our national museums are putting a high price on 'special'

http://www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2014/may/17/museums-cost-price-high-charge-special-exhibition

Version 0 of 1.

When did it become acceptable to charge £15 or more to spend an hour or so mooching around a special exhibition at one of our national museums?

The British Museum's mildly disappointing Vikings exhibition is £16.50 a head. Madonna's conical bra may tempt visitors to the John Paul Gaultier show at London's Barbican, but for the material girl you pay a very material £14.50. The National Portrait Gallery's David Bailey show, described as "brainless glamorama" by a Guardian critic, will relieve you of £14.50. The Matisse, at London's Tate Modern, is "luscious" and "joyous", say critics, but at £18 (including a donation) the more humble commentators say "these blockbuster shows are getting rather expensive".

Fancy a peek at the Rembrandts, Rubens and Canalettos in the Buckingham Palace State Rooms from 26 July? The Royal Collection has upped the entry price by another two quid to £21. Throw in a visit to the Queen's Gallery and the Royal Mews and the price is a spectacular £35.75 a head. This is a cash-for-Gainsboroughs scandal. When the Queen threw open the doors to her palace in 1993, the entry price was £8. Adjusted for inflation, it should be around £14.50, but is nearly 50% higher.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show these rises are not just anecdotal or confined to London – the "cultural services" part of the inflation index is now one of its fastest-rising elements. Average pay, meanwhile, continues to lag the index.

How do they get away with it? The answer is because they can – they are simply charging what the market will bear, and the steep increases have not deterred visitors. But while well-off foreign tourists may be able to splash out, how much are these runaway prices putting cultural enrichment beyond the reach of average-income families and individuals?

I asked the National Portrait Gallery to justify its fees for the Bailey show. It said: "We regularly benchmark our prices with other museums and galleries across the capital to ensure our prices are comparative" – although by the same logic, bankers in the City say their million-pound bonuses are the going rate.

General admission is, of course, free. As a child, I spent many weekends coming up from Ilford to wander the Science Museum, fascinated by the planes hanging from the ceiling, and to check out the dinosaurs and blue whale at the Natural History Museum and the mummies at the British Museum. The removal of entry fees has encouraged ever greater numbers to do the same. But since then, a two-tier set-up has emerged, where the middle classes and foreign tourists may afford the treat of a special exhibition, but the rest cannot.

Yes, I queued like everyone else for the first of the "blockbusters" (and still the biggest ever) – the Treasures of Tutankhamun show at the British Museum in 1972 – but the tickets were priced not just for the deep-pocketed. Back then it was 50p to get in – equal to £5.76 today. What would they want today? £20? £25?

To be fair to the galleries, they live in austere times. Last year, the then culture minister Maria Miller told the arts world they must make the case for public funding by focusing on its economic, not artistic value.

Does this mean that so long as wealthy American or Chinese visitors can stomach the entry fees, or major corporate sponsors are kept entertained, the rest of us must be happy with the permanent collections only?

To their credit, many of the galleries struggle amid the cuts to offer some free exhibitions.

When I turned my back on the Bailey show as too pricey, I found the National Portrait Gallery's free offering, The Great War in Portraits, a worthy alternative. And with my Martin Lewis money-saving hat on, I reckoned the Bailey prints shop might be the free-entry way to see the collection. Instead, I was offered some inkjet prints. For £15,000 each. If I became a member I could get them for £13,500. What a bargain!