SFMOMA leads U.S. in art museum ticket prices
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
It's not just the artwork turning heads at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) — it's the ticket prices, too.
By the numbers: SFMOMA charges $30 for general admission — on par with The Met in New York City, the most visited and arguably most iconic art institution in the country.
- Special exhibitions like the "Ruth Asawa: Retrospective" cost an extra $10, making the total price $40.
Yes, but: The museum offers regularly scheduled free days, such as the first Thursday of every month when any Bay Area resident can visit at no cost.
What we're watching: SFMOMA recently laid off 29 employees — about 7.5% of its staff — citing financial difficulties and declining attendance.
- The museum, which faces a $5 million structural deficit, also cut 13 positions that it had no plans to backfill, including vacant roles.
- Management has not indicated any plans to change ticket prices as of now.
What they're saying: "We're ... adjusting our budget to reflect a reduced annual attendance normal in the range of 600,000 visitors," director Christopher Bedford wrote in a letter last week.
- That will mean decreasing the number of annual exhibitions and collection rotations, Bedford noted.
The big picture: SFMOMA, which recorded 850,000 visitors per year pre-pandemic, last raised ticket prices in 2023 from $25 to $30.
- It was the fourth major U.S. museum to announce a price hike to $30 that year.