Met Changes 50-Year Admissions Policy: Non-New Yorkers Must Pay<br />Though the required admission for out-of-towners will result in a relatively modest revenue increase,<br />Mr. Weiss said, “If every part operates a little bit better, we can get where we need to go.”<br />Mr. Weiss emphasized that this change was not undertaken lightly and<br />that the Met had evaluated several possible options, including mandatory admissions for everyone at a lower price point (“We felt an obligation to New Yorkers to not do that”) and charging for special exhibitions (“that would undermine access for New Yorkers”).<br />Under the new admissions policy, the $15 million that goes toward energy costs like heat<br />and light will remain intact; the remaining $11 million which offsets the Met’s operating costs (for security and building staff) will reduce on a sliding scale after the first full year, depending on how much incremental revenue the new admissions policy generates, with a cap at $3 million.<br />For the first time in half a century, visitors to the world’s largest cultural institution, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will have to pay a mandatory admission fee of $25 if they do not live in New York State under a new policy<br />that begins March 1, the museum announced on Thursday.<br />“We can always make the rules more strict,” Mr. Weiss said, “but I’m hoping we don’t have to.”<br />The required fee was borne of economic necessity, Mr. Weiss said, and is related to a planned decline in New York City funds to the institution.<br />In recent years, as competition for donations of money<br />and art has increased, the Met has sought to keep up with expanding museums in New York like the Museum of Modern Art, now in the midst of a major renovation, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, which recently opened a new home in Manhattan’s meatpacking district, where it is drawing large crowds.
