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On 21/12/2012, at 5:27 PM, "Alan Friedman" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

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> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
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> 
> In prehistoric times, i.e., 1978, a dozen San Francisco Bay Area
> planetariums involuntarily ran an experiment and found out what happened
> when we started charging fees for previously no-cost programs.  Our
> findings supported Kathy Patterson's observation.
> 
> The instigation of the experiment was the passage of Proposition 13 in
> 1978.  That caused the beginning of a drastic decline in property tax
> revenues, and local governments throughout the state reacted by
> immediately cutting "optional" services.  At the time there were over a
> dozen planetariums in the San Francisco Bay area, and we were a collegial
> group with a shared PR service.  Most of us charged no admission until
> Prop 13, at which time essentially all of us had to begin charging
> admission.  We tracked attendance throughout this period.
> 
> The results:  attendance stayed about the same or went up, and stayed that
> way for years.  We came to the same conclusion Kathy did:  many people
> decide that if something is being given away "free" (even knowing in the
> back of the mind that they paid for that service in their taxes), it must
> not be very valuable.  Charging a reasonable fee demonstrated that the
> planetariums throught their services were worth something, and so they
> must be worth more than if they had been free.
> 
> But please note Elaine Heumann Gurian's analysis and plea in her famous
> 2005 Museum News essay, "Free at Last."  Not everybody can afford to pay
> market rates, and many bad things happen when cultural institutions charge
> ever higher admissions.  Not only are many people unable to pay that
> admission, but the relationship between the institution and the public is
> changed in deep ways.  There are reasons, Elaine argues, why most public
> libraries are held in higher regard than most public museums, and the
> tradition of free admission to libraries is one of those reasons.
> 
> ________________________________________
> Alan J. Friedman, Ph.D.
> Consultant for Museum Development and Science Communication
> 29 West 10th Street
> New York, New York 10011 USA
> T  +1 917 882-6671
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 12/21/12 12:00 AM, "ISEN-ASTC-L automatic digest system"
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
>> Date:    Thu, 20 Dec 2012 08:58:09 -0500
>> From:    Giftshop <[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: charging fees for previously no-cost programs
>> 
>> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
>> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
>> institutions.
>> **************************************************************************
>> ***
>> 
>> I have found that sometimes free programs are not respected as much and
>> charging a nominal fee give the program "value" and reduces no shows.
>> 
>> Kathy Patterson
>> Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
>> 
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