?What brought you to our gallery today?? she asked me as I exited their exhibition The Arts and Crafts Movement in Europe and America, 1880?1920: Design for the Modern World. I was at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in mid February (during the worst rainstorm in 115 years) talking to a staff marketing researcher.

?I visit LACMA whenever I am in LA,? I answered ?And I have even traveled to LA specifically to see LACMA exhibitions such as Tutankhamen, Diego Rivera and the Vancouver Art Gallery?s Down from the Shimmering Sky.?

Her eyes lit up and I knew why. I had just become a golden statistic?someone who traveled from afar specifically to see a LACMA exhibition. This is an institute?s greatest achievement. I was standing before a marketing person, living proof that her gallery was driving tourism; the ideal destination tourist. Did I have time to answer some questions, she asked, and of course I did as LACMA is one of my favourite galleries to visit in North America and because of my interest in visual arts, gallery attendance, and arts marketing here in Vancouver. And so we began a conversation that lasted longer than either of us expected.

?LACMA is struggling,? she said. ?Attendance is down and we are only beginning to understand why.? She explained that staff members are concerned because the programming at LACMA has been getting stronger and stronger as attendance has declined. She had a lot of questions for me and I had a lot for her. We really enjoyed comparing notes, especially since we found each other to be passionate advocates of the visual arts, populist in our orientation and from two different (but similar) cultures. LACMA is bringing back the blockbuster King Tut exhibition this summer and for her, this is a tragedy. Although she is a loyal LACMA staff member, she sees it as a turning point in the institution?s history. ?King Tut?s return is exclusively about making money and driving up attendance statistics,? she said, and she has never known LACMA to make such a practical programming decision.

Why does she think attendance is down? One reason, she believes, is the Getty museum. The Getty is free. The day after talking to my interviewer, I went to the Getty on a day when it was monsooning and still there was a long line up and the centre was bustling. When I stepped off the tram that takes you up to the Getty, there were free treats. There were also buckets of umbrellas for visitors to use between buildings, and there were more free treats provided to us in the line up for the cafeteria. At the Getty, you are treated like royalty and there is no admission. ?How can you compete with free admission and an unlimited marketing budget?? my interviewer asked me. ?And how can we possibly operate at LACMA without admission fees??

The other reason she feels attendance is down is the nature of contemporary culture that focuses on the present and the ego. ?Look at television today,? she said. ?Do you want to be America?s Top Model? Do you want to be an American Idol? Do you want to become ?famous? by eating worms, or finding your mate on TV or by some other endeavor requiring no talent or skill?? Personal ?fame? is the goal today. There seems to be limited interest in the achievement of others. Perhaps, we agreed, we are getting old and experiencing the cynicism of one generation for a younger one, but we were in mutual despair about the impact of American pop culture on young people and its vacuous values.

She had an interesting story for me about a touring Frida Kahlo exhibition that she had heard about at a conference for museum staff. The exhibition opened at its host museum when the Selma Hayek movie about Ms. Kahlo was released. Attendance at the exhibition exceeded expectations as a result of the impact of the movie but what interested my interviewer was the museum?s shop manager?s report. The shop manager was shocked that books and scholarship about the artist and her work did not sell at all, but the t-shirts were sold out in a couple of days. So were the screen savers, mouse pads, cards and towels?but not the books. And when the show went on tour, attendance dwindled, as sites were further and further removed in time from the release of the movie. ?Frida as accessory? is how my interviewer described the phenomena. Audiences were not drawn into Ms. Kahlo?s remarkable life and work to any depth. Rather, her image became an icon for personal statement.

Going to a museum, a theatre or a concert hall figures less and less as a choice for the leisure time of young people. That is the impression of my LACMA colleague. ?The younger the person I interview, the less likely they are to be interested in coming to LACMA. The only reason I get to talk to young people at all any more is because they come to the museum with their teachers and because they attend schools rich enough to enhance their education with field trips.? And, she said, ?Young people want things instantly. They seem to see little difference between seeing a painting online and seeing the real thing.?

I returned our discussion to the subject of the Getty?s free admission. Free admission has always been an important objective in my approach to museum (art gallery) management. In England, state museums have no admission fees and the galleries are always extremely busy with people of every age. Visitors are very often regular attendees, visiting the galleries several times each year. Teachers and their students flock to the museums because they only have to pay for transportation not for admission My interviewer agreed that this was an admirable objective and she saw the Getty as proof of the draw that free access can be. But we both agreed that getting museum directors to champion free admission is unlikely.

Gallery directors want to advance their gallery?s reputation and the measure of success in their eyes is not in attendance statistics, although these stats are important. It is scholarship that furthers the director?s and the institution?s reputation. Originating a ground-breaking exhibition, and further, touring a critically acclaimed exhibition is what galleries and directors are after, and originating and touring shows costs a lot of money?money that might otherwise be used to reduce admission fees. (Witness the unparalleled investment in the recent Massive Change exhibition on the part of the Vancouver Art Gallery.)