The UK recently called time on its antiquated drinking laws and pubs can now apply for a licence to stay open into the early hours. Now the London Assembly is urging museums and galleries to do likewise, with the aim of helping to help create a late-night culture that isn’t dependent on binge drinking and people vomiting on the pavement.
In order to promote the capital’s nighttime economy the Assembly has published recommendations that will get a ‘wider range of people’ into the city at night to promote ‘non-alcohol related activities.’ Such proposals are not new but have been given a heightened sense of urgency following the changes to drinking laws. The specific recommendation relating to cultural institutions is for, “London’s principle museums and galleries should stay open later in the evenings. We recommend that the LDA develop, promote and support an initiative to keep museums and galleries in areas that have a significant night-time economy open until 10pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.” Not for the first time, it seems the bureaucrats are one-step behind.
The Arts Section of the UK’s Guardian newspaper already lists a selection of museums and galleries offering late-night opening. There are 17 venues listed in London and a further 8 spots elsewhere in the UK. For most venues 8pm is the cut off time but a few places, like the Royal Academy, Saatchi Gallery, Tate Modern, and Victoria and Albert Museum, stay open as late as 10pm.
By itself, staying open late is not guaranteed to attract numbers. A fact attested to by the slogan at the top of the Guardian list which reads: “Want to see an exhibition without the crowds?”
However, late-night promotions have been successful in raising awareness of later opening times as well as getting people through the doors. Time Out magazine and the Natural History Museum have launched a promotion offering Time Out readers a free glass of champagne during late night events scheduled on Fridays. The Royal Academy is keen to offer a range of sponsorship packages, from £50,000 to £250,000 for it’s Late Night Openings. In the USA, the Dallas Museum of Modern Art is top trumps when it comes to servicing Texan night owls.
In January 2003 the museum attracted over 45,000 visitors to its 100th birthday celebrations by remaining open for 100 hours during a five-day period. Pleased with the results, the museum remained open from 5p.m. to midnight on several occasions last year in conjunction with special exhibitions. Noting the popularity of late nights, the museum decided to launch a series of once-a-month late-night Fridays, which it kicked off with a mini-version of it’s centennial event. The mini-event not only attracted 10,000 visitors, but generated a great deal of publicity for the museum.
The experiment in late-night opening is being conducted nationwide: UCLA’s funky Hammer Museum hosts events running until midnight, and the Philadelphia Museum opens late every Friday. If an institution is hosting an exhibition of artworks that resonate strongly with the market (audience) then, as was the case last year at the UK’s Tate Modern when it’s Edward Hopper exhibition sold over 400,000 tickets, it makes good commercial sense to decide to stay open later in order to meet a spike in demand.
The main barriers to more venues being open to nocturnal culture vultures are the limitations of cities’ infrastructure, such as late-night transport and a lack of security (real or imagined). The London Assembly has put forward proposals to deal with these issues and if it’s new strategy to boost the nighttime economy is successful the dream of having a 24-hour museum experience that is rooted in reality (not cyberspace) could become more than just a dream.
