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> It also collides with a deeper tension the Louvre has struggled to resolve: swelling crowds and stretched staff. The museum delayed opening during a June staf
by Waterluvian 1y ago
> It also collides with a deeper tension the Louvre has struggled to resolve: swelling crowds and stretched staff. The museum delayed opening during a June staff walkout over overcrowding and chronic understaffing.
Raise ticket prices until you can afford more staff or don’t need more staff?
- malshe 1y agoI don't know how easy it is to increase prices in France but in some places they sell tickets in advance and there are only a limited number of them. Something like movie theaters.
- hdgvhicv 1y agoIn which case visitor numbers won’t swell
- thrance 1y agoIt's already like that, and it sucks. I remember a time when you could spontaneously decide "I'm going to the museum today!" then go there, wait a bit in line and get in. Now you have to book it weeks in advance, then get in line anyway, or show up without a reservation and be told the museum is full.
- pinkmuffinere 1y agoSure, it does suck. But things change, and this is one of those things. The present solution has the Louvre closing without warning because they are short staffed, and that will only become a more frequent problem if they can't find some solution. Would you rather live in a world where you have to plan your visit to the Louvre, or where the Louvre will be randomly closed 5% of the time?
- lazide 1y agoFrance is the only place in the world you can have so many visitors that you…. Can’t hire more staff?!? For a paid venue?
- pinkmuffinere 1y agoDid you not read the thread? They are not paying enough to keep their staff working. Their options are to increase prices, decrease availability, or do nothing and hope it works out.
- lazide 1y agoNo kidding, thanks for summarizing what I’m saying.
- pinkmuffinere 1y agoAh sorry, i misunderstood the sarcasm. You’re totally right, it’s absurd
- Waterluvian 1y agoFirst and foremost, any implementation where staff walk off the job is not a solution. So status quo is worse than any alternative plan that addresses that issue.
- kakacik 1y agoThe beauty of not being the center of the universe, or having a passion that almost nobody else has. When it comes to appreciating say the art, I see no issue there. Your right ends where other's same rights begin and all that.
- thrance 1y agoYou misunderstood me. I don't lament not having the museum to myself. I lament the loss of a time when we could go to places without planning to weeks in advance. Nowadays, we still need to wait in line to get in the museum, as we always needed to, the only difference is that there's a panel that reads "online reservations" in front of the line, and that you get bounced if you don't have a reservation.
- paul7986 1y agoOh interesting we secured tickets in Sept for the winter. It sounds like there's a chance we wont get in...
- alamortsubite 1y agoI think a better way of looking at it might be that there are plenty of other museums that fit the bill, but the Louvre is no longer one of them.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- gloryjulio 1y agoExactly. Japan has been raising prices to help to curb the crowded tourism. Such a simple supply/demand solution
- tiagod 1y agoKeep it up, and you ensure only foreigners and rich people will be able to visit important or desirable things in your own country. I live in Lisbon, and see this happening all the time.
- gloryjulio 1y agoIt's tourists tax for the foreigners, it's not for the locals. Maybe Lisbon should consider charge the foreigners to help fund the locals too?
- jgrahamc 1y agoIt's pretty common for museums here (in Lisbon/Portugal) to offer discounted entry to residents. I was just a the MAAT (for example) and I asked for and got the resident discount. And there's the scheme which allows residents 52 museum entries per year for free: https://www.museusemonumentos.pt/pt/noticia-com/novo-regime-de-gratuitidade-em-museus-e-monumentos https://www.museusemonumentos.pt/pt/noticia-com/novo-regime-...
- reverius42 1y agoThere are two things you can do about the law of supply and demand. Believe in it and act accordingly, or don't believe in it and be victim to it.
- spike021 1y agoAny reasonable place doing this offers discounts in various formats for locals. San Francisco has some museums like this with discounts for locals.
- wahnfrieden 1y agoThe Louvre is a national museum. Access by lottery with affordable ticketing would be more democratic than access by riches over others by pricing out working class visitors.
- Waterluvian 1y agoI agree. But not at the cost of the working class workers.
- catlikesshrimp 1y agoI don't know about the Louvre, but national amenities usual charge more to tourists. You can rise tourist fares as much as needed. They aren't poor nationals, and it's their number which is causing problems.
- littlestymaar 1y agoI'm not sure they can legally charge more for other European citizens than French citizens though.
- zvr 1y agoYou cannot have any different pricing for all EU nationals.
- Archelaos 1y agoFrom the Web-site of the Louvre: Admission is free for the following visitors: Under 18s Proof of ID required. Under 26 year-old residents of the European Economic Area (EU, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein) Proof of ID and residency required. All visitors On the first Friday of the month after 6 p.m. (except in July and August) (Source: https://www.louvre.fr/en/visit/hours-admission https://www.louvre.fr/en/visit/hours-admission)
- linschn 1y agoDon't forget teachers, and unemployed people. This is true for every national muséum in France and it is awesome !
- blackoil 1y agoOr create a separate museum for Monalisa and few top exhibits for tourists interested only in them.
- marci 1y agoIt’s already the case.
- bigstrat2003 1y agoWhen I visited the Louvre it was absolutely wild to me how many people were just there for the Mona Lisa. I took a look at it in person because of course I did, but I don't think it was anywhere close to the most interesting piece the museum has on display (I preferred the classical sculptures), nor even the best painting. It seems like such a waste for people to fawn over that one painting and pretty much ignore all the other masterpieces you can see there.
- cguess 1y agoThe Mona Lisa isn't even the most interesting piece in the room it's shown in.
- prmoustache 1y agoI think it would also be more interesting if you could really approach it and have the time to look at it like other pieces. My memories of the Mona Lisa is of a rather small paint behind dirty glasses with a large group of japanese tourists grouped in front of it and I simply didn't have the patience to wait and I just really glanced at it while passing by. Also like most paints of its age, it is seriously damaged, colors aren't the original one and paint is cracked. I wish there was a way to actually enjoy in person those paints as they were when they were delivered to their customers.
- cguess 1y agoThere was a digital reconstruction using the pigments analysis https://blog.world-mysteries.com/science/digital-restoration-of-leonardo-da-vincis-mona-lisa/ https://blog.world-mysteries.com/science/digital-restoration... My memories of the few times I've been to the Louvre are exactly the same as yours. Musee d'Orsay down the river is a much better museum in my opinion and the one I never skip when I'm in Paris, the Louvre I'll only go to if someone I'm with has never been and really wants to.
- sorenjan 1y agoYes, let's price out everyone but the rich from seeing art. Let the free market decides who deserves to see culture in real life.
- zeroonetwothree 1y agoThe Louvre ticket price is around $18 right now. I think they could stand to increase it a bit without pricing out “everyone but the rich”.
- casenmgreen 1y agoI may be wrong, but it seems to me pricing everything at its actual correct price is the best way; do not subsidize consumption or production, do not protect producers. All of these things are firstly political footballs and secondly only act to consume wealth inefficiently (which is to say, to mis-allocate resources). Then work on making everyone as wealthy as possible, by encouraging economic growth, so we have as much personal, individual wealth as possible, and so can buy as much of what we want or need as possible.
- autoexec 1y ago> it seems to me pricing everything at its actual correct price is the best way It seems to me that the "actual correct price" is the one that doesn't prevent everybody but the rich from being able to experience the art and cultural heritage. There are many alternatives for dealing with crowds available. It's also just good business since those artistic works are a huge draw for tourists being outside money into Paris and into the country as well.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- __turbobrew__ 1y agoThere is more culture outside of the Louvre than inside it.
- atmosx 1y agoThe Louvre understaffed? It's one of the most visited places in the world and would still be, even if the double the ticket price. The "Louvre understaffed" sounds like a management failure more than anything else.
- koliber 1y agoI'm willing to guess that securing that window was in no one's backlog, and this was not an issue of either swelling crowds not of stretched staff. It was a security failure.
- mrtksn 1y agoWhy optimize for profit? These institutions have far greater cause of providing the population with culture. In UK for example, most museums are free - at least the best and most important ones.
- scoofy 1y agoYou don’t need to optimize for profit. Optimize for operation efficiency. You can easily still do that using the pricing function.