The world’s most visited museum will begin to sell all tickets online on its website. The measure aims to cope with long queues and close ticket offices
Source: Fabrizio Verrecchia/The Art Newspaper
Vincent Pomarede, the deputy general administrator of the Louvre, told AFP: “Until now a reservation system has not been obligatory (but) we will put in place an obligatory reservations system, as many other museums have done, and, by the end of the year, all visitors will have to reserve.” He added the obligatory reservation could be introduced as early as in September or October, according to the Art Newspaper.
It is likely to happen until October 24, when the exhibition to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death opens. The museum has spent a decade preparing the show and borrowing as many works by the Renaissance genius from other museums as possible.
On June 18, when the Louvre began selling da Vinci’s tickets online, the museum’s website crashed. Le Parisien wrote the website was fixed the next day, but it took up to 25 minutes to book a ticket. Nearly 33,500 tickets were sold during the first 30 hours online in addition to those sold at Fnac stores for people who are not familiar with the internet. Tickets for the exhibition are still on sale, but not all time slots are available.
Online reservations for blockbuster exhibitions are a common practice for big museums. However, some museums leave part of tickets for tickets offices as, for example, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna did for the Bruegel exhibition.
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