03 Dec 2018
Lower entrance fees at UK galleries and museums for younger visitors, urges former V&A director
BY Luke Cloherty
Sir Roy Strong, the former director of London's V&A Museum, has said that national galleries and museums across Britain should introduce lower entrance fees across the board and with greater concessions for younger visitors.
Strong, who was V&A director between 1974 and 1987, made the comments to The Telegraph newspaper, suggesting that current fees for cultural institutions are excluding the millennial generation.
"I would much rather see a low entry fee for everyone, with concessions for students and people like that," he said.
Speaking in response to a survey conducted by Ecclesiastical Insurance, Strong also said that he sees very little choice for UK museums and galleries other than to introduce entrance fees as they are "desperate for money" after exhausting fund-raising option.
The survey, which questioned 2,000 people aged between 18 and 30, found that more than a third said they never visit galleries, while almost half never go to stately homes. Nearly half of respondents also said that they would visit more if big exhibitions had cheaper tickets. The study also suggested that people who were not taken to cultural institutions as children were far less likely to visit them as adults.
Entry to national galleries and museums across the UK is almost ubiquitously free, however, most of the larger exhibitions they hold are often not.
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