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There are so many other very reasonable access options the ROM has effectively decided against: Free access to the permanent collection. Free access for a day or an evening. Keeping all admission fees at $10 or under. Having concession fees for the underemployed. Admission by donation. The list goes on. Almost every museum in Canada has some combination of these strategies–and has to, in order to keep their funding and their reputation.

 

By throwing more money at the ROM without keeping them to a truly equitable public mandate, McGuinty is basically encouraging bad behavior in their museum management. Maybe he can abide by that. But I certainly can’t.

Shame there was no mention of museum access in other cities. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Toronto the single most expensive city on the planet Earth for visiting the centrepiece museum? Isn’t there something wrong with that? Something that letting a few students in for free will not exactly address? Just as Pearson is the world’s most expensive airport (landing fees), but no one seems to care, there is a surprising tolerance for this gouging.

 

Cities, TTC, museums, airports - exactly how poor a country is Canada when it comes to government funding of anything other than health care? Think about that while you pay the world’s highest prices (plus GST!) for transit fares, airline tickets, ROM admission….

They don’t call it the “Royal” Ontario Museum for nothing.

They have also canceled the free access for teachers to preview exhibits for field trips which is a drag.

I agree that TO is not the most expensive city in the world. But the ROM fees are still far from reasonable and fair. This is particularly so for their permanent collection, which are the objects the public in effect owns. That’s why in MTL at the fine arts museum it’s free to see the permanent collection, extra for special exhibitions. Same at the Tate in London.

 

Also, the Louvre (9 euro daytime admission) has a variety of access strategies that the ROM does not: Discounts every day after 6pm. Free for all the first Sunday of every month. Free for those under 18 all the time. Free for those under 26 on Friday evenings. Free for those with disabilities, and their companions. Free for the unemployed. Free for those on social benefits. And these are obtained right at the gate, no need to get in line for rationed passes.

 

And the American Museum of Natural History permanent collection access is always by donation. They suggest certain donations, but ultimately all visitors regardless of income, can, yes, see the dinosaurs. Temporary exhibits require payment, as with the Tate and other museums.

uSkyscraper, there is a tolerance for price gouging in TO. Partly it has to do with a generally higher cost of living compared to other Canadian cities. And partly it has to do with costs downloaded from the province. But partly I think it also has to do with the idea that we can’t be “big time” until our cultural events are expensive. It’s really ridiculous. The MoMA in NYC charges $20, but it is a private museum, a rather different situation. Oh, and one more potential reason: many museums of late have mistaken “press coverage” and “tourist draw” for “quality museum management.” Not the same thing.

A London monthly card for zone 1-2 is 93 pounds but that is also good for rail. A Twin Pass for GO/TTC is no longer available but for a comparable region it would cost far more than $185.

 

Based on purchasing power (relative to salaries, etc.) I still stand by my statement. Toronto is a bargain when it comes to skating rinks or housing or cost of living in general, but anything civic or infrastructure-related tends to be very, very expensive. To add to my list of “most expensive” — per-km toll highway, commuter train fares, observation decks…(ok, that last one is private and not civic but I still find it annoying.)

 

Leah is quite correct — all museums in New York that receive any city funding must use pay-what-you-wish admission or lose city funds. A noble principle that should apply to the ROM. MoMA is private and costs $20, but even that museum is free on Friday nights (4-8 pm).

Admission to the ROM, what with all the public funding it receives, should be based on suggested donation, along with possibly an admission ticket required for special exhibitions and the such. This way, let the clueless tourists shell out the suggested admission and everyone else get in for whatever they want to pay.

 

I am a New Yorker, and one of my favorite things about growing up there was how I could go to the Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the same day for, well, 5 cents each, with a stroll through Central Park thrown in. My high school was a short walk away from the Met, and we would go there to hang out after-school (dorky? yes. awesome? yes)

 

And as a UofT student, I would love to go to ROM on a regular basis - and now I will be able to. But it would be ultimately better for everyone if that were the case for all of us. Toronto would do well to create a stronger sense of civic pride and belonging, and cultural institutions of course play a huge part in that.

 

But the ROM does not at all feel like it is a public institution. I remember being annoyed when I heard about how they were having a ’special’ opening for the rich (or whoever) before the ‘official’ opening of the crystal last year - and really, wtf was that? Sure, throw a ball for those that contributed money - but to have it before the public opening just told me that they did not want to have them in there after us common folk contaminated the place.

 

But really, everything, and I mean everything, in Toronto seems to be more expensive than what I experienced in NYC - and the quality is worse - and there is no reason why it should be that way.

Do working poor people really have time to spend at any museum or gallery? I recall freebie nights at the AGO attracting mostly middle class but cheap Torontonians and some students–most of whom come from middleclass backgrounds.

 

But yeah, make the ROM free from midnight to six AM!:)

Student textbooks • U.S.-based Freeload Press provides free college textbooks in electronic form with advertisements inserted at chapter breaks. Inexpensive print-on-demand versions with no ads can be ordered for about USD 30. 'Customers' include students at four-year and two-year colleges throughout the U.S. and Canada. Freeload publishes primarily business and finance books. Students who register and complete a survey on Freeload's website can download a free PDF version of their textbook. Advertisers include Discover Card, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the College Loan Corporation.

 

In Europe, Danish Ventus Publishing runs a similar concept in 5 countries: (Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium). Ventus offers titles in the fields of economics, science and engineering, featuring ads from companies such as T-Mobile, British Airways and Deutsche Bank every four pages.

Finance • Free software may be nothing new, but sophisticated personal finance/money management tools had until now eluded the FREE LOVE dance. Enter Mint, which has relationships with more than 3,500 banks, credit unions and credit card providers, and each night securely downloads transaction data to give users a unified view of all account activity. Transactions are categorized and organized to show users how much they spend on gas, groceries, parking, rent, restaurants, DVD rentals, etc., while an alert system proactively notifies them about unusual activity, low balances, unwanted fees and charges, and upcoming bills. Mint's revenue model is based on lead generation. The system keeps tabs on the latest offers from hundreds of providers and recommends ways users can save money on interest rates and other expenses. Mint is currently available only to U.S. consumers, of whom more than 100,000 have already signed up. The company claims it is now organizing USD 6 billion in user transactions, and has identified nearly USD 90 million in savings opportunities.

Also check out Wesabe, which is part financial software, part community. With Wesabe, users can see all their bank accounts and credit cards in one place, categorize their transactions however they want, see spending and earning summaries, discuss things with other interested users, and receive tips for saving money based on their spending. Membership is free.

If giving is the new taking, then hundreds of thousands consumers/individuals are on the right path. Never before have we witnessed such an explosion of free content, courtesy of individuals who—for free, nada, zilch—are happy to share their thinking, their novels, their photos, their movies, their music, their knowledge and expertise, their advice, their crafts and more.

 

Call it GENERATION C, the HOBBY ECONOMY, the GIFT ECONOMY or CROWD MINING, as long as you don't forget that besides undeniable passion, this user-generated FREE LOVE provides participants with visibility, with respect, with status. Even if they participate anonymously (Wikipedia is a good example), it gives them bragging rights among other GENERATION C members.

 

Now, we’ve written and spoken about participation vs consumption so often that we won’t repeat the whole spiel, but two more thoughts:
 
  Firstly, nothing indicates that user-generated content, both of the paid and the free kind, and in all its variety, is not here to stay.

 

Secondly, if many consumers are now producers too, and if they mostly produce for free, will they not expect a similar sharing and loving attitude from corporations? So as a brand, not only may you find yourself competing directly with individuals doing what you do for free, but you will also be confronted with growing expectations for your brand to be giving rather than just taking.

Now, FREE LOVE is not about everything being free in the (near) future. After all, not everything commercial can be ad-sponsored (if only because those ads in the end have to sell something else), not everything will be copyable, and not everything that's non-commercial can replace the for-profit business world. In fact, scarcity can and will forever be redefined, creating an endless stream of new products and services that many consumers will be happy to pay for. For some instant inspiration on what may in fact be better than free, (re)read Kevin Kelly's excellent 8 Uncopyable Values.