So, the media and my fellow bloggers have been shocked that although the skeleton of Lucy has come all the way from Ethiopia to Seattle, Seattleites have not exactly flocked to see it. The fall-out has been rough for the Pacific Science Center, which has lost a ton of dough. Commonly mentioned culprits are the terrible weather during Christmas (and yeah, it was indeed awful) and poor advertising.
My experience with the exhibit suggests that the problem is more likely to be price. Getting into the Pacific Science Center is already pretty spendy — $38 bucks for a family of four. Including the Lucy exhibit was an additional raises the price to $20.75 per adult, and $16.25 for kids over 6 (Sorry PSC — misread the fine print on the web site, but it’s still expensive). So, grand total for a family trip?
About 75 Well over a hundred bucks.
For an experience where there is a 50% chance that the kids are going to get bored in 15 minutes and start begging to hit up the gift shop for mood rings and pneumatic rockets.
So paint me not surprised that people did not exactly flock to the exhibit. Maybe if they’d made it free for kids, more of the adults would have been willing to drag them in to satisfy their own curiosity. But spending an extra $4074 bucks to see Lucy when the less civilized members of the family would rather go watch the PSC’s colony of naked mole rats just doesn’t seem like a rational decision to most parents.
(and yeah, I know that people without kids like science too, but I’m guessing that 90% of the visitors to science centers consist of parents taking their kids to an entertaining weatherproof space where the kiddos can run around and not break stuff).
January 28th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
What are they thinking at PSC? I realize it’s expensive, but I volunteer at OMSI here in Oregon; you can’t charge an extra $20 per person to see a special exhibit!
Heck, if you charged an extra $5 per person and advertised well, or just opened it up for free and asked every family that saw it for a donation of $10-$20, it would probably have generated a lot more revenue.
For the record, you will be hard pressed to find someone more excited about seeing stuff like this with my own eyes; I doubt I would spend $20 extra just to see one skeleton.
January 28th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Why not baby sitters? Why do people even think about bringing kids somewhere that they couldn’t hope to be well behaved or interested?
As a childfree person I’m not going to see the exhibit specifically because I know it will be overrun with kids. I think a serious scientific exhibit like this would be more at home at the Burke.
January 28th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Very few museums of any kind are affordable any more. I understand the economics of it, but its a shame. We don’t go to the Portland Art Museum for that reason, though as parent of a curious & energetic 4 year old we are OMSI members.
January 28th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
I completely agree – way too expensive. There is no way I could take my family to this. Just too much. I think they would enjoy it, but there are cheaper things that are good.
To bad they don’t have something like the zoo and aquarium in New Orleans. You can buy a year-long family membership for just a few dollars more than the cost of one visit. That is awesome.
January 28th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Nice to see the comments about OMSI. I grew up with OMSI, back when it was up in Washington Park. In my yearly visits to Portland with the kids, we make regular pilgrimages there. PSC must have their head up their rear with prices like that. Lucy is special, but not that special. One wonders who is charging PSC an arm and a leg for displaying it.
January 28th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Whoa. I wondered why people weren’t going to see this exhibit when I first heard about this. Now I don’t wonder why:p. I’d like to go see Lucy and the various attached paraphernalia, but there is no way I’d be willing to dish out that kind of dough.
January 28th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Regarding pricing for the Lucy exhibit; for an adult visitor the cost of admission to Pacific Science Center is $11.00. The cost of admission to Lucy is an additional $9.75. Seniors and kids 6 through 12 have added discounts. Children 5 and under pay $6 for museum admission and no additional charge for Lucy.
January 28th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
$20+ a head is awfully expensive. We are big fans of the Pacific Science Center, and we don’t have children, but $40 is more than we are likely to spend on an exhibit. An extra $5, or about $15 total, we might have considered going, but ….
January 28th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
“I’m guessing that 90% of the visitors to science centers consist of parents taking their kids to an entertaining weatherproof space where the kiddos can run around and not break stuff.”
That is the most depressing part of all this — that parents think that it is perfectly normal for kids to “run around” and make a nuisance of themselves in public places. Incredible as it sounds, there was a time when parents felt shamed by the misbehavior of their children.
How about an exhibit called “The Collapse of Parental Discipline and its Dire Consequences: The Decline of Public Civility in the USA, 1950-2010.” I’d pay to see that one!
January 28th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
We saw Lucy in Houston last year. We paid $20 per adult and that covered general museum for us as wel (not the other planetarium or other special exhibits). It was well worth it. We got a ticket for 8am on a Sunday and were one of the first to enter. We went straight to the end because we knew she’d be there. So we were alone with Lucy (and a security guard) for like 5-10 minutes. Very, very special. We went back and re-read early parts of the exhibit after we were done and others started to enter the Lucy room. Totally worth the $20 for us.
January 28th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Pope such-an-so, I take it you were perfectly well-behaved as a child, in every instance. You weren’t? Then you should withhold your scorn.
January 28th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
jackie, I suspect that that the kids will gravitate towards other exhibits (e.g. the giant robotic bugs and the butterfly exhibit). So as a “childfree person” you can probably safely evade brats if that is your preference.
That reminds me, I should take my toddler son to the Burke, he might enjoy climbing on the dinosaur bones.
January 28th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Oh boy! Are we about to have a childfree vs breeder war? I’m gettin’ out the popcorn!
And Wendy — thanks for the correction. I’ve fixed the numbers in the post. But it still adds up to a ton of money for a family outing. My parents took my kids and one of their friends, and were appalled at how much the visit cost them.
January 28th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Julianne: I say “bring it on,” childfree people.
(Although I’ll predict that the childfree people will win the war–they have more time to spare for writing blog entries)
January 29th, 2009 at 12:51 am
It is perhaps worth pointing out that a couple of years ago, the directors of Pacific Science Center colluded with an unethical scheme aimed at concealing a scholarly scandal from the public.
The precise goal of this scheme, involving Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship, was to shore up the reputations of the disgraced group of conservative Christian monopolists who controlled access to the scrolls for many years.
Further, this group, with the assistance of Pacific Science Center, sought to convince the public of the truth of a highly disputed, religiously oriented theory, which has been rejected by reputable, secular-minded researchers all over the world. Pacific Science Center did not even inform the public of scholarly opposition to the theory in question.
Under such circumstances, what form of scientific integrity can Pacific “Science” Center claim to have? Why should anyone support such an institution, or even believe anything they see in exhibitions put on under its auspices?
Here is a set of items which anyone can consult to see exactly what happened at Pacific Science Center — and then, incidentally, in San Diego:
http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/is/deadseascrolls.html
http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/did-christian-agenda-lead-biased-dead-sea-scrolls-exhibit-san-diego
http://robertdworkin.wordpress.com/2008/07/12/the-ethics-of-exhibition-romancing-the-scrolls/
http://www.forward.com/articles/take-claims-about-dead-sea-scrolls-with-a-grain-of/
http://museum-ethics.blogspot.com/2007/06/chronology-of-dead-sea-scrolls.html
And see now the National Post article on this controversy:
http://www.nationalpost.com/arts/story.html?id=954321
January 29th, 2009 at 1:23 am
I think museums should rightly be seen as part of the education-system, and as such be free or atleast cheap.
In contrast to this, the (marvellous !) science-museum in downtown London costs a grand total of $zero to enter for a family of 5. And it’s a huge, very active museum with tons of exciting exhibits, infact the main problem is you’ve got no chance to even begin to cover the interesting parts in just a single-day visit.
January 29th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Looking at the PSC website, I see no discounts for school groups. Did I miss something, or is this now a world-wide trend? I find it very sad when so many exhibits are for the wealthy only.
When I lived in San Francisco and thought about taking visitors to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, one of the world’s most wonderful aquariums, I would inwardly wince, mentally calculating the cost of driving, parking, paying $30 per person to get in, a meal,… When I thought about a field trip there for my inner city students, I realized
the costs were simply prohibitive. What does it say about the values of a society when only the well-off can afford art, music, and science events?
When we first moved to Prague, the Czech Republic, I was excited to discover that museums
and science exhibits here have traditionally had extremely low fees for school trips. Children and students of all ages could be seen on the trams or Metro on such outings. Now we are just starting to see “blockbuster” popular exhibits, apparently aimed mostly at tourists, charging very high admission fees and giving no discounts to school groups.
On the issue of behavior: Here in Europe, one can often spot American children by how loud, whiny, and disobedient they are, and how their parents seem to feel this is “normal.” Czech children appear quiet and content for the most part. Very young children get a lot of gentle attention from both their parents and their siblings on outings. I see very few Czech parents having to discipline their youngsters.
Dogs are popular here and go everywhere. They also are quiet and well-behaved, with few exceptions. Breeds that in the U.S. seem to bark incessantly are quiet here, even when they meet other dogs in the park. I find this astonishing.
I attribute the differences to expectations, to the adult modeling of quiet, considerate
behavior, and to the slower pace of life which allows everyone more time to actually enjoy each other. There are also numerous parks, frequented regardless of even the coldest weather.
I would love to see some of this quality of life return to America, and Czechs to realize what they have and hang on to it.
January 29th, 2009 at 8:45 am
Lucy was a big deal in the early 1970s, but who is going to remember that now?
That is a lot of money just to stare at an incomplete skeleton. I hate even talking so ignorantly, but this is what a lot of people are going to be thinking, especially those with children and even those living in “enlightened” Seattle.
I hope people can look to the future and not let this economy ruin it because we are all too focused on it right now. It will pass like every other economic crisis in our past. I would like to hope that it will never happen again, but we have whole new generations of greedy bankers and business types just waiting to make that fast buck and to heck with everyone else and the future.
January 29th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
wow… i think poor advertising is a big one here… I’m living in seattle, attending the UW, and yet this is the first i’ve heard about lucy coming to seattle.
January 30th, 2009 at 9:52 am
When you think about the prices for museums these days, it is absolutely amazing that the best museum that we have in this country, the Smithsonian, is free. All it takes is a trip to DC. Go through the obligatory metal detector, and spend the rest of your life there. Absolutely amazing.
February 2nd, 2009 at 11:08 am
The Smithsonian is “free” only because you pay for it with your tax dollars.
The rest of them have to grub for funds.
February 9th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
I saw Lucy when I was in Ethiopia back in 2001 and I didn’t know I was about to see her until I accidentally walked into the exhibit. It seems that she isn’t advertised much anywhere!
It was interesting, but I don’t think I’d pay that much.