The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that it welcomed more than 5.5 million visitors to its two locations— The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters—in the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2024 (FY24).
As the Museum’s attendance continues to rebound following the pandemic, the number of domestic out-of-state visitors reached pre-pandemic levels this year and the number of local New York City visitors exceeded pre-pandemic figures, a 102 percent recovery compared to 2019. BIPOC visitors accounted for a record-high 56 percent of The Met’s attendees from the United States, a figure bolstered by a diverse and robust suite of programs and exhibitions, including The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism (on view through July 28), which has welcomed more than 437,000 visitors, and the annual Lunar New Year Festival, held this year on February 3, which drew 26,700 visitors.
“The Met’s mission is to connect all people to creativity, knowledge, ideas, and one another, and we’re honored to be able welcome so many from near and far to the Museum,” said Max Hollein, the Museum’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “The Met is committed to presenting a wide array of exhibitions, collection displays, activities, and events, and we’re thrilled to see our programming resonating so strongly with increasingly diverse audiences.”
In the past fiscal year, audiences were presented with several ways to deepen their engagement with the Museum, including a wider range of offerings prior to entering the galleries. In September 2023, the Museum opened its popular 81st Street Studio, an active art and discovery play space for children and their caregivers, which attracted more than 170,000 visitors since its inception. Contemporary sculptures in the niches of the Museum’s facade, The Facade Commission: Nairy Baghramian, Scratching the Back (September 7, 2023–May 28, 2024), intrigued both passersby on Fifth Avenue and visitors entering through the main steps, who, once inside, were greeted by yet another compelling and intriguing display, The Great Hall Commission: Jacolby Satterwhite, A Metta Prayer (October 2, 2023–January 7, 2024), which transformed the historic space with a site-specific multimedia installation.
Exhibitions
Exhibitions on view in FY24 that contributed to the strong attendance included Van Gogh’s Cypresses (with 495,000 visitors), Richard Avedon: MURALS (392,000), Manet/Degas (351,000), and The Roof Garden Commission: Lauren Halsey (334,000).
Other FY24 exhibitions that drew high attendance included Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty, Women Dressing Women, and Tree & Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India, 200 BCE–400 CE, and the reopening of The Met’s galleries dedicated to European Paintings from 1300 to 1800 was also an attendance highlight.
Joining the now-on-view standout Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism, the Costume Institute’s Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion has welcomed over 177,000 visitors since it opened on May 6, and The Roof Garden Commission: Petrit Halilaj, Abetare has brought in more than 100,000 visitors since April 30.
Education and Public Programs
The Met offers tens of thousands of free classes, programs, and activities each year in the service of making art accessible to New York City residents and beyond. In addition to the Lunar New Year Festival, the Museum hosted a robust program of daylong drop-in celebrations for families that included, in October 2023, Met Fest, which brought in over 18,200 visitors.
May 2024 saw the 10th anniversary of Teens Take The Met!, and the event welcomed over 3,700 teens from across the five boroughs. In June, the annual Museum Mile festival drew over 8,800 guests to the Museum.
The Met additionally welcomed 5,312 K-12 school groups and celebrated the achievements of local public school students through exhibitions including P. S. Art 2024: Celebrating the Creative Spirit of New York City Kids (through October 20). Throughout the year, the Museum hosted over 250 interns and fellows, working closely with Met staff across forty department areas to explore career pathways in art, culture, and museums. In April 2024, the Museum expanded this initiative with the establishment of The Met-NYCHA Art and Culture Scholars Program, a new high school leadership development program for public housing scholars. As with all intern opportunities at the Museum, participants received a stipend.
Online
The Met’s website (metmuseum.org) had more than 34 million visits in FY24 with 37% of engagement outside of the United States. The Museum’s social media reach is broad: its Instagram has 4.4 million followers, its X (formerly Twitter) has more than 4.2 million followers, its Facebook has more than 2.2 million followers, and its TikTok reached more than 1.3 million followers.
In January 2024, The Met introduced an online ticketing option for New York state residents that allows them to forego in-person lines and reserve pay-what-you-wish tickets on the Museum’s website. New York state residents and New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut students with valid student IDs can still access pay-what-you-wish admission at The Museum while children under 12 receive free admission. For more information about visiting the Museum, please visit The Met’s website.
Photo credit: HWM.
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