[Sue Deyoe]

I know people have weighed in on this issue previously, but my case is a bit special. In 1991, our museum signed an agreement with the National Park Service for a 10 year loan on a large exhibit. Every 10 years we’ve re-signed the agreement. It is housed in our museum and we take care of the building, they take care of the exhibit (cleaning, etc) However, here’s part of the problem: they like to give programs (NPS programs are generally free to the public, since its a federal program) So how do we charge people to come into the museum when they want to see the NPS program?

[Louise Stewart Beck]

Hi Sue,

This is an interesting question! I’ve reached out to some of our experts, I will keep you updated when they reply and weigh in.

[Louise Stewart Beck]

Hi again Sue,

It’s been suggested that a path to pursue would be with a lawyer, as the question for the museum does appear to be a legal one – can you charge for admission if you are not charging for the program? Considerations of the museum’s overhead costs (electric, heating, staffing) should come into play here.

More ideas to come!

[Toni Kiser]

Hi Sue,
We do this fairly often where we have ceremonies/commemorations or even US Military retirement ceremonies where people come just for the event or program but do not visit the museum. For us, we use those metal buttons with the fold over tab to show that someone has bought admission. If someone is there to attend an event they can just go to the building or room that the event is in. Then, if they try to enter our galleries they are directed to go back to the ticket desk. Our gallery entrances make this feasible, and that may not be the case for you. If you have people checking for tickets or admission they may be able to recognize a sticker or a button for an event that would tell them that the person is not there for the galleries but instead for the program. Probably the key thing would be to have a person monitoring the space to an extent to ensure that non-paying folks are in the right place(s).
Hopefully, that is helpful. If you want some more detail about how we go about it I am happy to go into specifics with you.
Toni Kiser
The National WWII Museum
New Orleans, LA

[Sue Deyoe]

Toni, thanks for your thoughts. We don’t have a way to separate our galleries or take tickets for each building. Maybe we’ll have to come up with a paid employee that could monitor this one event? It would be interesting to see how you manage. Our small non profit museum has the total of one FT employee (2 PT actually). “Galleries” are actually 3 separate buildings. People get an admission ticket, but there isn’t any one to check tickets in the buildings. I suppose there would be a way for someone to jump the back fence and enter other buildings other than the main one. That’s sort of the issue. There isn’t a way to let people just go to the presentation since they have to walk thru the entire museum in order to get there.

[Michael Hosking]

Sue,

I would reach out to the NPS site that owns the collection. As an NPS employee I have presented programs that people had to pay an entrance fee to the area but not a fee for the program. Also, the NPS charges fees for programs/entrance to sites. We also have collections in partner institutions that charge entrance fees to gain access to the collection. I am no longer familiar with the policies guiding this but it would warrant a conversation with those who present the program and discuss your dilemma. I did a quick survey of the museum documents and fee guidance and did not see anything that prohibits your museum from charging your regular entrance fee to get to the program. Of course, the person that would ultimately decide this for the park is the Superintendent (or park manager if it is a small park). Let me know if you have further questions and I will try to help as much as I can.

[Author]

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