Prior to leaving for a weekend in Philadelphia, I checked the website of the Please Touch Museum for details to plan my visit. I was shocked to see the admission price was $15 per person (older than one.) It would cost $30 for me to take Mirielle for a couple of hours.
Why was I surprised? Many of the children’s museums I have visited seem pricey: our local children’s museum is $11, our old local museum was a bargain at $8 for under 17 and $10 for adults, the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose is $10. Don’t get me started on the Cal Academy of Sciences at $25 for adults (though free for under 6) or our new CT Science Center at $16 for adults and $13 for kids in a city where the median income in 2007 was only $27,654 and over 30% of the population lives below the poverty line.
Are high prices at museums leaving kids out at sea?
So a family of four needs $60 to visit museums which are often supported with public funds and whose missions are all about kids? How many families can afford a $60 visit these days?
Many museums have “free” days, but crowds can take away the fun, if a family is even able to get in. Another option is membership. Travels with Children has an excellent example on how to find memberships that are valuable. “Pay for itself” not withstanding, the buy-in for membership is steep at over $100 for reciprocal privileges with other member museums through the Association of Children’s Museums.
Our local library has a great program where you can “check out” free museum passes for a day which I think is a fantastic solution. (Please recommend it to your local library or tweet @whpl for more information). On a school holiday, I went to check out passes to our local children’s museum and the librarian informed me that they had chosen to stop participating in the program a few years ago. I skipped the $22 admission.
Are most children’s museums too expensive? Are they pricing out the people they should be serving? What’s your opinion? Does your community have any programs to make the museums more accessible regardless of means to pay? Do you think they are working?
Check out:
*Another parent’s point of view
*An affordable children’s museum
Check the great stories (including mine) in the fall issue.
While I do think some children’s museums are very expensive, many are not out of line with other museum admission prices. A day at the Museum of Science and Industry or the Shedd Aquarium or visiting the special Louvre Exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (which is otherwise free) would be in line with the children’s museum fees that you quoted above.
As far as pricing out the groups these museums are intended to serve, I agree. And I disagree. The free days are intended to make museums accessible to everyone, but I personally avoid them because of the crowds. Field trips, however, are usually quite reasonable, and some museums offer reduced field-trip rates for groups that have certain percentage of free/reduced lunch children in them.
Perhaps not well-known, some museums offer free memberships for families in certain income categories. The Minnesota Children’s Museum’s “Access Membership” is free for low-income families, and the Science Museum of Minnesota offers $1-$3 admission for families on free-reduced lunch, WIC, or other asssistance programs.
Entertainment isn’t cheap these days. A ticket to a sporting event, or even a movie, will cost as much as a museum ticket. Which is the better value?
I also want to mention that while the big, expensive museums are often amazing, some small museums are more affordable and often just as much fun for kids.
Interesting post. I’ll be interested to see what others think.
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I am always shocked at the price of children’s museums. They’re generally the most expensive attraction we visit when we travel. Our recent visit to Pretend City in Irvine really took the cake – I was required to pay admission for my 4 month old baby. Not only was he too young to play with any of the toys, but he slept through the whole outing!
That said, none of the Children’s museums I have visited is a profit making enterprise. I suspect that art museums and science museums are able to maintain cheaper admissions because they often have endowments and more well established fundraising. They also tend to be older, which means that they are not paying off a new building or many new exhibits.
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Maybe the solution is fewer children’s museums — in a 30 minute drive we can get to five children’s museums that I know about plus the science center (which I understand used to be part of our local children’s museum). That would help consolidate financial (and administrative) resources.
Second, a “pay what you can” with a recommended admission like some museums in NYC would be a great option.
And of course the “check out” admission passes programs like out library has I think is a great, low cost contribution.
Really? Five within 30 minutes? That seems to show that your community can, and is, supporting those museums. They wouldn’t remain open if they were empty, would they?
I’d venture to guess there are no museums in the U.S. that cost as much as a day at Disney, yet many families make that journey.
I do think we need to remember to thank corporate sponsors who help the museums become accessible to those with lower incomes. They are really doing a service to their communities.
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I have pretty much agreed with all sides of the argument. As a rule, I don’t usually mind the admission to non-profit places, as long as I can see that the place is being well-maintained, and that it has programs that serve all of the community. For larger families, the memberships usually make these museums a bargain compared to taking kids to amusement parks. In my classroom, about half of my kids are on free and reduced lunch, and I know that- life in general- is usually a struggle for these kids’ families. On a recent trip to the San Francisco Zoo I saw that “First Five California” (a program for low-income families) had taken a large group of families to the zoo that day. That was awesome for those kids. There should be more of those opportunities available.
Having lots of friends who work for museums and knowing how tight budgets are these days, I’m loathe to say that *any* museum is too expensive. I know that most museums are doing the best they can in a terrible economic climate to be true to their missions, which in the case of children’s museums are generally to educate and nurture creativity.
It does bother me though to think that there are families left out in the cold because of high admission costs. We do tend to purchase memberships because it is often close to being cheaper and we figure that we’re supporting the institution . I wish there was an option at the places of more directly making admission possible for lower income children.
And on another note, I’m finding as my kids get older that my need for these type of museums is waning a big – I think that may be why my reaction to The Magic House wasn’t completely positive.
I’m sad I missed you while you were in Philly! We’re actually members a the Please Touch Museum – I’m not sure, but I may have been able to get you a discount! (Oh, and one thing to point out about that museum is that if you become a member, you also get free parking and free rides on the carousel – if you’re there with two kids you might as well just buy the membership.)
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First, thanks for your comments. This has been a provocative discussion that has really got me thinking. I looked into the five children’s museums near us and three have $5 admission, one has $7 admission and only our local, is in double digits at $11. It is in an affluent town relative to the other four, but it is also closest to Hartford which is one of the poorest cities in the US so it would serve that community. I am just going to call and find out why and will have a follow up post. (and I am going to visit the cheaper ones over the holidays to compare facilities/programs.)
I wouldn’t compare children’s museum admissions to Disney tickets as Disney is a once in a childhood/special/annual vacation destination that many kids never visit. The only reason I saw Disney World as a child was because we lived in Florida when it opened and they were practically giving away resident season passes. My younger brothers never had this opportunity (or were too young to remember) and did not visit the Disneys until adulthood. (I will actually have another discussion post on Disney as well as I think this is an interesting topic)
This discussion has definitely pointed out that Membership works for larger families or families who use the local children’s museum like a playground (frequent visits). With fewer kids or visits, the economics may not work. We only have one membership now with the Carle museum and we did not expect it to ‘break even,’ we were just very passionate about supporting it.