Leipzig's museums: visitor record thanks to free admission!

Leipzig's museums: visitor record thanks to free admission!

Leipzig, Deutschland - In Leipzig, the city museums experience a remarkable increase in visitor numbers. A current visitor survey from 2024 shows that the museums are increasingly acting as an attraction for people from the region. Compared to 2023, every tenth visitor comes from a radius of 40 kilometers, which represents a tenfold increase. The institutions examined are the city historical museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig, the Natural History Museum and the Grassi Museum of Applied Arts. According to l-iz.de, the number of visitors increased by about 30 percent.

Since January 2024, admission to the permanent exhibitions of the city museums has been free of charge. Dr. Skadi Jennicke, the mayor and deputy for culture, emphasizes the positive effects of this freedom of pay. Almost 50 percent of those surveyed stated that they had used free admission; For 14 percent, this was the main reason for her museum visit. In addition, free admission played a crucial role in the decision to attend the museums for 20 percent of the respondents. Over 70 percent of the Leipzig residents knew about the free of charge, which explains the great response to this measure.

Visitor satisfaction in focus

The high satisfaction of the visitors is another positive aspect of current developments. 57 percent of the respondents rate their visit as "very good" and 37 percent as "good". The annual survey, in which around 1,400 people took part, also determined that the interest in the topics of the museums remains the most important reason for the visit. Only 20 percent of the visitors stated that free admission was an additional incentive.

The freedom of pay of wage not only contributed to the increase in visitors, but also to an increased participation in cultural offers. The city of Leipzig is investing a total of 500,000 euros annually in this project, which is part of a comprehensive museum concept by 2030. In addition to freedom of pay, this also provides measures such as provenance research, transculturality, social discourse and digitization in order to promote the museums as "third places" and innovation rooms. According to the city history-museum-leipzig.de, however, these suggestions must still be approved by the city council.