Titanic big draw
Posted Feb 15, 2011 03:01:07 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The final numbers are in for the “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition” at THEMUSEUM downtown Kitchener.
David Marskell, CEO of THEMUSEUM tells 570 News by all accounts the exhibit was a huge hit. In total, they hosted 44, 351 visitors.
He says they took a $430,000 risk to bring the Titanic exhibit to town, laying out $150,000 upfront. When the dust settled they made that back, and an additional $20,000 on top of that.
The extra cash will go toward covering payroll between shows, and help plan for the next one.
Marskell says they also broke thru some very important barriers. They brought people downtown Kitchener at night, and allowed people to purchase tickets in advance online, which helped to get people thru in an orderly fashion.
The demand was so great that the final weekend they went 36 hours straight from 10am on Friday until 10pm on Saturday, where they hosted 5,000 people. On the final Sunday, and additional 2,000 people took in the exhibit.
Attendance for the Titanic exhibit outpaced any other exhibit at THEMUSEUM by about 10 per cent.
Marskell says 20 per cent of the visitors were seniors, and 30 per cent came from outside of Waterloo Region. He says many day-trippers and some who stayed overnight were visible in neighbouring restaurants, hotels and gas stations.
