Admission fees can really be off-putting if you have kids. It’s lovely to expose kids to art and culture occasionally but if you have 2 kids at admission age then it can end up costing over $30 to see an exhibition. And it’s dubious what a kid will get out of one specific exhibition (I take them more so they feel confident to go to them when they are older, and hoping that maybe something will spark some interest in something). Often kids don’t want to read the information provided, and rush you through, so you don’t really get the full benefit yourself either. So it would be good if kids’ fees were substantially discounted (rather than only a couple of dollars cheaper as is usually the case).
I will happily pay for things I am really interested in though. I remember when the Surrealist exhibition was on at QAG when I was a teenager (so back in the 90s, people). We went as part of a school excursion and that exhibition changed me and influenced the development of my art. I appreciate how expensive exhibitions like that are to arrange and display. My answer to that these days would be to go without the kids (or go again, without them, after first taking them perhaps!) If an exhibition of female Surrealist art was to be offered any time in the future I’d pay to see that!
I think libraries do occasionally charge for programs though (the Edge is a case in point). It’s a complicated thing and I think where possible programs should be fully funded, but I realise it’s not always possible.
