Free museum visits on the last Sunday of the month have led to growth in attendance, according to representatives of Lithuania’s public museums. “From 2009 to 2019, which was a record year, we had very steady consistent growth, with 5.5 million visitors nationwide in 2019,” says Gabrielius Sužiedėlis, vice-president of the Association of Lithuanian Museums.
Last year, over 4.9 million people visited Lithuanian museums, an increase of 56 percent compared to 2021. The Lithuanian Maritime Museum in Klaipėda, the Palace of the Grand Dukes, the National Museum of Art, and the National Museum in Vilnius attracted the most visitors, reports LRT.lt.
The number of Lithuanian museum visitors is growing, according to Vydas Dolinskas, director of the Palace of the Grand Dukes. This is a consequence of the pandemic when people who were unable to go abroad began to take an interest in their heritage and culture, travel around Lithuania, and visit museums, he said. “We have had a good and productive year, with more than a quarter of a million visitors in the first half of the year,” he added.
The National Museum of Art, with branches in four cities, organizes more than fifty exhibitions a year. The leading museum is the Amber Museum in Palanga on the Baltic coast. The National Museum, which has 11 different branches, says the biggest attraction is the Gediminas Castle in Vilnius, as well as interactive and outdoor exhibitions.
In 2019, the country’s public museums introduced free entries on the last Sunday of each month. The campaign has made museums part of people’s weekend routines, according to industry reps. “The trend is clear, people love the exhibitions, they like going for free, many come back after a Sunday to have another look, and those free Sundays are breaking records,” says Rūta Kačkutė, director of the National Museum.
On the last Sunday in July, the Palace of the Grand Dukes broke its attendance record – the tapestry exhibition of King Sigismund Augustus’ 16-century tapestries alone attracted more than 6,000 visitors in one day. “You had to wait two hours to get into the exhibition: an hour outside in the rain, an hour inside the palace, but there were no complaints,” says Dolinskas, head of the museum. The National Museum of Art recorded more than 10,000 visits a day in July.
