Personally, I love what I am seeing here, and they had me until they said it will be $50 a ticket??? I mean, I will certainly pay $50 to go once but do tourists pay $50 to go to a museum? Especially something this niche? I can't remember paying $50 to go to any museum in my life. Maybe I have a short memory but makes me nervous this whole enterprise will be short lived.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56nBbrw8Wew
I suspect many would prefer to put the $50 towards seeing an actual show.
My EXACT thoughts! WAAY too expensive, in my mind! The MOMA charges half that.....and I guarantee they have 10x the exhibits.
I’ll definitely be visiting once they smooth out the early kinks. The Academy Museum in Los Angeles (at $25) was a huge disappoint upon its opening and just now is it starting to address its hiccups. The only major plus for me are the film screenings they have at their Geffen Theatre, which is a state-of-the-art red encased movie theatre.
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/26/16
$39 + $4 service fee for a ticket for a specific 15 minute window.
$49 + $4 service fee to show up anytime on a certain day...
for a museum their FAQs estimate will be a 1 to 2 hour visit.
Hard pass. I'll wait till it's inevitably on Groupon or Goldstar for $15-$20.
Featured Actor Joined: 9/14/16
I'm going Saturday 11/19 during my NYC trip and report back (when I get back home from the trip-won't have my laptop with me).
Swing Joined: 11/9/22
binau said: "Personally, I love what I am seeing here, and they had me until they said it will be $50 a ticket??? I mean, I will certainly pay $50 to go once but do tourists pay $50 to go to a museum? Especially something this niche? I can't remember paying $50 to go to any museum in my life. Maybe I have a short memory but makes me nervous this whole enterprise will be short lived.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56nBbrw8Wew cookie clicker
I suspect many would prefer to put the $50 towards seeing an actual show."
Paying $50 for a one-time experience is possible, but this won't happen often. It means that the business will not be able to survive for long and without loyal customers.
I have to admit, I never thought much of this idea to begin with but assumed I'd check it out - at this cost, I doubt I'll go at all.
I’m fine with a $50 fee especially for something like this, which is great in theory, but that news clip is not helping the cause. They have entire rooms or spaces they could have used to display and really do something with, and it’s like one or two mannequins?
Another sneak peek:
https://www.tiktok.com/@tylerjosephellis/video/7164792672203345194
I'm sure over time tickets to this will be available at a discount.
Hard pass after these “sneak peek” videos. The free one they had at the Lincoln Center covering Hal Prince’s career was beyond - the detailed set models of his shows including the original one for 1970’s COMPANY and 1971’s FOLLIES, plus lots of videos, photos, costumes (including LuPone’s “Buenos Aires” costume from 1979’s EVITA), the actual storefront set from SWEENEY TODD, many costumes from THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, including the gondola, etc. Oh, and did I forget to mention it was FREE?!
They'll probably have rotating exhibits at some point. I may visit if the special exhibit is interesting to me.
Some theaters like the Gershwin (Wicked), Richard Rodgers (Hamilton), August Wilson (Funny Girl) have areas in the theater lobby/corridor with Broadway history stuff.
I'm shocked over how cheap and tacky this looks. Broadway deserves a better museum than this.
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
Does anyone expect this to last more than a few months?
It looks less like a true museum and more like a place to just take Instagram photos. Kinda like the Museum of Ice Cream, also in NYC. Too bad. I was really looking forward to a real Broadway museum. This ain’t it, kid.
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/12/14
Based on a review from Matt Tamanini on BroadwayRadio, it seems like it's a timeline walkthrough of the history of Broadway, starting from things like the Follies and minstrel shows and going through the Rodgers and Hammerstein era and so forth, with a lot of old costumes and memorabilia (Patti LuPone's wig from Evita and audience survey responses from the NYTW run of Rent were mentioned). That definitely makes me more curious but I'm assuming it'll be around for a bit so I'll see if they adjust pricing during the winter months.
Broadway Star Joined: 5/15/11
Clearly designed for the vapid selfie generation to spend their visit taking photos of themselves. I don’t imagine they will pay $50 to do that here. What a wasted opportunity. I was interested to go before I saw this video and now won’t be.
For this cost, you could get a rush ticket to an actual Broadway show. And for a little bit more, you could follow that up by then going to any of NYC’s world class museums.
Real museums don’t charge this much. Madame Tussaud’s does.
I agree that the promos make it look like an "Instagram museum," and that's not encouraging.
But hopefully it's more of a hybrid. One of the clips in the news segment says that there's a lot to read as well. Plus, it seems appropriate that a theater museum would have a lot of visual + interactive components.
Regardless, I'm with you on the bottom line: no way this is worth $50 to me, and I won't be attending any time soon unless it shows up on the papering sites, and even then it won't be a priority for me time-wise.
I mean, I paid $46 for the 9/11 museum with a tour guide. But, that was three hours with the guide so unless they can show me more than that sad, underwhelming video, count me out.
seaweedjstubbs said: "It looks less like a true museum and more like a place to just take Instagram photos. Kinda like the Museum of Ice Cream, also in NYC. Too bad. I was really looking forward to a real Broadway museum. This ain’t it, kid."
Yes,it is more like those pop-up attractions for clueless tourists.
https://www.themuseumofbroadway.com/
https://twitter.com/museumbroadway
https://www.instagram.com/museumofbroadway/
Neither of the co-founders have any experience running a museum. But they do have experience in brand activations and experiential marketing, unsurprisingly. In fact, it doesn’t look any anybody involved has any experience even working in a museum.
The lack of involvement from big theatre names and people with legit museum experience is kind of a major red flag to me here. The whole thing looks very focused on Instagrammability, not preservation or education. The twee neon signs? C’mon.
Videos