The costs this supposes for the city of Leipzig amount to 500,000 euros annually. Admission will still be charged for special exhibitions and events. The city council has yet to decide on the administration proposal.
"The introduction of free admission to the permanent exhibitions of the city's museums is a warm invitation to the citizens of our city to make even greater use of these public cultural spaces for lively encounter and to spend time together. We are thus also implementing a central goal of the city of Leipzig's museum concept. The municipal collections should be accessible to all citizens free of charge and thus particularly attract family audiences and young people to the museums," emphasises Dr Skadi Jennicke, Mayor of Culture.
More visits expected
The City of Leipzig's Department of Culture and the museum directors hope that free admission to the permanent exhibitions will significantly increase the number of visits by Leipzig residents as well as visitors from outside the city. In addition, the development of the buildings into so-called "third places" will be supported, i.e. places of community and informal get-togethers, but also innovation spaces.
The introduction of free admission will incur a loss of admission fees costing around 427,000 euros plus expected additional expenses for fees and management of 73,000 euros. At the same time, the museums expect the rising number of visitors to generate more interest in paid events and special formats, as well as stronger sales in the museum shops.
Evaluation after three years
The introduction of free admission for permanent exhibitions was already planned for 2019, however was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Leipzig is thus following the example of other cities such as Essen (Museum Folkwang) or London (British Museum), which have already been successfully implementing free admission in their museums for several years. An evaluation of the impact will be conducted after three years and presented in 2027. The evaluation will also serve to examine the introduction of free admission to the permanent exhibition of the new Natural History Museum.
Museum Concept 2030
With a museum concept, the city is setting a binding framework until 2030 for the four municipal museums. The main focal points for the Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, Naturkundemuseum, Museum der bildenden Künste and Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst are, inaddition to making them free of charge, provenance research, transculturality, museums as places of active social discourse, museums as "third places", acquisition of third-party funding, construction of a central depot and digitisation.