Newly released attendance data from the Metropolitan Museum of Art suggests a promising future for the institution following pandemic-related declines. In a statement today, July 24, the Manhattan museum announced that its two locations — The Met Fifth Ave and The Cloisters — attracted over 5.5 million visitors for the 2024 fiscal year, which ended on June 30, representing a 102% recovery rate among local visitors since 2019.
On March 12, 2020, the Metropolitan Museum of Art became the first major museum in New York City to announce it would indefinitely shutter its doors to protect visitors and staff from the then-rapidly spreading coronavirus. The decision immediately set off a domino effect among the city’s cultural institutions.
The 2024 visitor numbers do not break The Met’s attendance record of 7 million-plus in 2019, when the museum was operating a third location dedicated to contemporary art at the Whitney’s Breuer Building. But it is still a welcome turnout for the institution, reflecting an influx of domestic out-of-state attendees and locals that met and surpassed pre-pandemic levels, respectively.
This is despite raising admission fees to $30 for out-of-state adult attendees in June 2022 — a move that has since been replicated by the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Guggenheim Museum, among others.
The rise in attendance over the last year also exemplified another trend, as domestic BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) visitors comprised just over half of The Met’s domestic attendees, its highest-ever percentage, according to the museum’s statement. A representative for The Met told Hyperallergic that this data was gathered via onsite surveys in which visitors self-reported their race and ethnicity.
While domestic attendance was up, a representative for the museum told Hyperallergic that international visitor numbers were still around half of what they were pre-pandemic.
The museum cited multicultural programming such as its annual Lunar New Year Festival and the ongoing exhibition The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism. Today, the museum announced it will be opening a new exhibition in November tracing Ancient Egypt’s legacy through the work of Black artists and cultural figures.
The September opening of the museum’s 81st Street Studio also helped contribute to 2024’s attendance numbers; the new interactive children’s center has so far drawn over 170,000 visitors. Popular shows like Van Gogh’s Cypresses (495,000 visitors) and Manet/Degas (351,000) had a significant impact as well.
While US visitor numbers appear to have bounced back, The Met spokesperson told Hyperallergic that its international attendance was at 900,000 — around half of what it was prior to the pandemic. Foreign visitors largely came from Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, China, and Australia, according to a list the museum provided to Hyperallergic.
