November 26, 2004

silhouette3.JPG From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Data Mining Alert

In September, the New-York Historical Society projected 250,000 visitors to the Hamilton Exhibition by February. A recent count was 27,000, about a third of the projected pace. President Louise Mirrer spins the poor attendance furiously:

To the Editor:

Re "Big Hamilton Show Fails to Draw Crowds" (Arts pages, Nov. 22): I differ with your premise. Attendance at "Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made Modern America" has been record-breaking and has continued to grow since the opening on Sept. 10.

In just four weeks, in fact, we exceeded the total number of visitors from school groups (largely students from New York City public schools) for the entire previous year and consider this milestone to be paramount in measuring our success.

Louise Mirrer
President
New-York Historical Society
New York, Nov. 23, 2004


As a NYHS staffer just said to me, " 'school groups'? But they're....prisoners!"

Posted by Mindles H. Dreck at November 26, 2004 02:22 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links
Comments

Thanks for reminding me! I wanted to see the exhibit, but I completely forgot about it.

Perhaps they need a bit more publicity-- with all the changes they've made to the money, you think they could have put a banner ad on $10 bill!

Posted by: Tony Iovino on November 27, 2004 11:42 AM

Louise Mirrer said that this year's attendance exceeded last year's. She is right. What she did not mention is that the museum was closed last year for renovations. So of course there were more visitors this year.

Posted by: lidia erlichmann on November 28, 2004 05:05 PM

Louise Mirrer said that this year's attendance exceeded last year's. She is right. What she did not mention is that the museum was closed last year for renovations. So of course there were more visitors this year.

Posted by: lidia erlichmann on November 28, 2004 05:05 PM

NYHS wasn't closed for renovations last year, just a few of the galleries for a few weeks (verified with my inside sources).

Posted by: "Mindles H. Dreck" on November 28, 2004 07:31 PM

My god. A record number of school field trip groups.

That's something to put on your resume!

Posted by: Dean Esmay on November 29, 2004 04:37 AM

Have YOU ever tried to market to school teachers? There's no more conservative group out there - "but we've never visited your gallery before. We ALWAYS go to the Botanical Garden and have a picnic!"

I have some respect for any education department that can increase the forced-marcher visits.

Posted by: Michael Tinkler on November 29, 2004 01:48 PM

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