The Met down 1.7 million visitors compared to pre-pandemic level—the biggest drop of any US art museum

The Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in New York had 1.7 million fewer guests in 2022 than earlier than the pandemic, in keeping with The Artwork Newspaper’s newest Customer Figures survey. Final 12 months, the museum’s most important constructing on Fifth Avenue had greater than 3.2 million guests in comparison with virtually 4.9 million in 2019—a drop of 34%. (The museum “carried out a brand new, digital programme” for counting guests in 2020, which suggests the 2019 determine has been retrospectively revised to make comparisons fairer).

The Met was not alone amongst New York’s main establishments in experiencing a drop in attendance in comparison with 2019, with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (down 42%), the Whitney Museum of American Artwork (down 19%) and the Brooklyn Museum (down 17%) all nonetheless beneath their pre-Covid figures. Solely the Museum of Trendy Artwork (MoMA) was up, by 10%, however this was as a result of its 2019 determine of almost 2 million guests was decrease than regular because the museum was closed for 4 months of renovations.

The Met is normally the preferred US museum in our survey, however in 2022 it was pipped to the highest spot by the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork (NGA) in Washington, DC, which had virtually 3.3 million guests. Nevertheless, the Met’s determine doesn’t embrace guests to the Cloisters in Higher Manhattan (196,000 guests in 2022), which is separated in our survey to offer a extra consultant footfall determine. If the Met’s two places had been mixed, their attendance would surpass that of the NGA. The Met was then adopted by MoMA in third place (2.2 million guests) and the Smithsonian’s Nationwide Museum of African American Historical past and Tradition in fourth (1.1 million guests).

A spokesperson for the Met says that customer numbers for this 12 months are trying higher although. “The return of our guests has considerably outpaced our forecasts, significantly in current months. For 2023, our native and nationwide guests are over 95% of pre-Covid ranges, and general we’re having fun with 78% of our pre-Covid viewers.”

In 2022, tourism to New York was 85% of the pre-pandemic degree and is predicted to recuperate additional in 2023. “Worldwide customer numbers are slowly constructing—starting with the nearer areas,” says the Met spokesperson. “We’re very optimistic for 2023.”