Shame on the Met, last Sunday five of us drove up to New York to see the Alexander McQueen show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We saw that there was a two hour wait and were informed that if we joined we could skip the line. Not a really big deal since we go to the museum at least four times a year anyway; we joined, two individual memberships plus a "donation" for our guests came to the best part of $200.
The we saw the line, OMG as they say, it went on and on, I could not believe it. When we got to the front of the line, yup, you guessed it, there was another line for members. To be fair we only had to wait a few minutes and we were in.
That was the beginning of the worst experience I have ever had in a museum or for that matter a rock concert. The halls were jammed packed, like a Tokyo subway at rush hour, once in you could not move neither forward nor back just bodies packed in like sardines. I am lucky because I am relatively tall and could see the tops of the exhibits but since I was carrying my four week old daughter I decided I would get the hell out (and get buy catalogue. But. . . leaving was not that simple as the crowds were so intense that it took me a good 15 minutes to get out!
While attempting to leave as politely as possible I found myself wondering what would happen if there was any kind of panic, someone fainting or worse, if the Fire Marshall was there it would surely have been closed - a disaster waiting to happen.
Why the museum could not issue timed tickets - like the rest of the museums in the world - is beyond me but then again their membership has doubled as a result of the show (skip the line) in the same period as last year, even at the basic level that's $700,000 of extra income not to mention the 55,000 copies of the catalogue!
Posted by Rick
