Free entry lures thousands of Aucklanders

The Auckland Museum's 'I am free' promotion has attracted 40,000 visitors from within the region in its first six weeks. Photo / Jason Dorday

Aucklanders have been quick to take up an offer to visit three Auckland museums for free.

At the Auckland Museum, the $5 voluntary admission fee has been waived since December 4 to mark the building's 80th anniversary.

The "I am free" promotion was supposed to end on February 28 but encouraged by the results so far, the museum's board decided yesterday to extend the offer by three months.

In the six weeks so far, 40,000 Auckland adults and children have visited compared with 27,600 in the same period the year before.

Museum visitor services director Karen Mason said that on Auckland Anniversary Day the 2770 visitors included 1285 Auckland ratepayers. Last year there were 1625 visitors - 493 of them Aucklanders.

"The visitor hosts [team] are excited by the rapid uptake of the offer and the drawing of more ethnically diverse visitors."

Staff had feared the campaign would be too complicated because a requirement of free entry was to produce proof of residency.

"But people were rocking up with their rates bills to show us last weekend."

Aucklanders contribute to the museum through their rates and the so-called voluntary admission fee has been unpopular since it was brought in 10 years ago.

In December, when the freebie came in, the voluntary admission fee was doubled to $10 for people outside the region.

"We had a positive response from international visitors and most out-of-towners willingly donated," said Ms Mason.

"We found a hesitancy from Wellingtonians, perhaps because Te Papa Museum is free."

Some people had given $5.

The Museum of Transport and Technology has offered free entry to Aucklanders for two years.

Marketing manager Angela Willis said the purpose was to showcase the museum to the community, to show them the value of supporting it and to hope visitors would come back.

In the first year, the free offer was made to residents of four councils' areas and brought in 27,525 more visitors or a 17.3 per cent rise.

The next year, all seven councils were given turns and 49,000 residents took advantage to save $14 on the adult rate and $7 for seniors or students.

This helped the museum achieve 245,000 visitors and it is aiming for 250,000 this year.

A similar offer is made by the NZ Maritime Museum, saving $16 on the adult rate and $12 for seniors and students. In 2008-09, about 17,000 Aucklanders took up the offer and the museum aims for half of its 150,000 visitors this year to be Aucklanders.

Legislation allows a compulsory levy on Auckland ratepayers this year of $24.3 million for the war memorial museum.

For Motat, the levy will be $10 million and $1.4 million is proposed for the Maritime Museum.