Why is Museum Night only once a year? Obstacles to be removed to open in the evening

Last Saturday, May 14, the “Night of Museums” was held. An initiative that takes place simultaneously throughout Europe and includes the extraordinary evening opening and admission of the main state museums, monumental complexes, parks and archaeological sites (and those non-state ones that independently decide to join the initiative) at the symbolic cost of one euro. Despite a somewhat stuttering communication, with sites announcing the opening only in the days close to the initiative, and despite cases in which a mandatory reservation was required, or long queues (all situations that invalidate the fruition for a public not accustomed to and not already fond of museums) the initiative was, again, an undoubted success, as well summarized by Federico Giannini. And so it becomes an opportunity to ask: why only once a year?

The question is not rhetorical, and it has to do not only with a political and social view of the role of the museum. As has been written in the past, including in this newspaper, theevening opening of museums, already a reality in many countries and cities in Europe (and occasionally in Italy as well, it must be said) would bring the obvious benefit of increasing visitors and giving the idea of a more welcoming museum, especially to social groups who, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., are engaged in work activities: a very large part of the population, and especially the part of the population that is most affected by low cultural participation. The current hours, on the other hand, are favorable mainly for tourists, students or professionals who “have no hours” in their work. The question is extremely practical if, back in 2014, when then and current Minister Dario Franceschini announced his “revolution” of state museum fee schedules, he envisioned one evening opening per week.

Let’s go back to June 2014. The minister decided to eliminate free admission for the over-65s: an important segment of museum-goers returned to paying, albeit with reductions. However, the measure, designed according to reconstructions to hit foreign tourism, was also irreparably going to hit many Italian pensioners with more or less meager pensions. The communiqué at the time therefore emphasized that this action would be accompanied by three others, and it highlighted this in the opening with four main guidelines of the reform, these: “free museums every first Sunday of the month,” “over 25 everyone pays,” “two nights at one euro over the course of the year,” and “evening opening of the great museums every Friday.” And he quickly mentioned that “free admission for the over-65s will disappear, who, however, will be able to visit museums without paying a ticket every first Sunday of the month.” Let’s imagine how many poor elderly people can stand in line to visit Pompeii on the first Sunday of the month. In any case, the reader will have noticed that the phrase “over 25, everyone pays” has become a solid reality (indeed, tickets have increased by about 60 percent in recent years, despite declining wages), the first Sunday of the month free as well, museum nights have always been one (although the second one somehow corresponds with theevening opening during the “European Heritage Days” in September), while evening openings every Friday night have been lost. In short, that taking away one gratuity in exchange for three new services has become taking away one gratuity in exchange for one and a half services.

The reason why is not hard to imagine: it lies first and foremost in the shortage of staff. With staffing levels reduced to 50 percent of what the ministerial staffing plan calls for, organizing shifts that guarantee extraordinary openings is terribly difficult. This was also seen last Saturday: if several state museums manage to guarantee overtime openings simply by paying overtime to civil servants, many have to go through other contrivances, for example, reducing the daytime opening hours to guarantee evening opening, employing volunteer or temporary staff, not to mention situations in which the museum opens only for the night of museums: from evening extraordinary opening, it changes to extraordinary opening tout court, but at night.

Escamotage adopted despite the fact that regulations say that cultural places cannot be opened without sufficient internal ministry staff: but there is no shortage of exceptions recorded here and there around the country, explains Claudio Meloni, secretary of the FP-CGIL for MiC. According to Meloni, however, there are also other aspects to consider in addition to staff shortages, particularly strategic choices: Italy is a country where in many cases the choice has been made to keep museums open 363 days a year, even at Easter or on May 1, despite a 50 percent staff shortage. And these openings, which have become ordinary today, have held up, thanks in part to agreements between the ministry and employees. An agreement, still valid, from 2000, specifies 11 hours a day as the opening hours for Italian cultural sites: needless to say, retirements have made it almost impossible to comply. “There is no problem with the cultural offer, but with its qualification and rationalization,” the unionist concludes. Every year an “enhancement plan” allocates 5 million euros for extraordinary openings: the “paper Sundays” of libraries, the “night of museums,” the “European Heritage Days,” and then others chosen independently by the various institutions. But experience says that in many cases impromptu evening openings, unaccompanied by solid communication, are not as successful as the “night of museums.”

Clearly, under these conditions (which have worsened year by year since 2014 due to retirements) ensuring the necessary shifts for evening openings every Friday night would have been impossible. Yet, that was exactly what the ministerial plan envisioned at the time the decision was made to increase the cost of tickets.

How to solve the situation? With a political choice, and a consequent investment, not only economic, but also programmatic. As political was the choice to make the May 1 opening ordinary or to make cultural venues “essential public services”-hardly really if they are closed after 6 pm. At this point, after years of pandemics and closures that have sapped museum audiences (ISTAT recorded that Italians who visited a museum during the year plummeted from 31 percent to 10 percent between 2019 and 2021), with 2,700 ready-to-hire usability, reception, and security assistants (however, we would need at least as many to cover the minimum staffing requirement) and a museum system that needs to be revitalized, the issue needs to be put forcefully, because the citizenry needs regular evening openings in state museums first and foremost.

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