Visitors gradually found their way back to the Museum of Art in 2022

NEWS: 26 01 2023

The year 2022 was marked by a slow and gradual return of people to the pre-Covidian visitor numbers for the Olomouc Museum of Art. A total of 45,047 people came, which at first glance is not a high number considering the 130,000 to 150,000 visitors in normal years. However, the Archdiocesan Museum Olomouc was closed for the entire year due to construction work, and the premises in the castle in Kroměříž, where the MUO presents the archbishops collections, were also inaccessible for most of 2022 due to renovations. 

Last year, 28,343 people came to see exhibitions in the Museum of Modern Art building, and another 13,200 visitors saw the exhibition Flowers of Patience, which the museum co-organised in the crypt of St Wenceslas Cathedral - the high attendance was due to both the attractive location and free admission. "If we count the exhibitions that charged a fee, the most successful was the Home and the World project, including the related programme Cinema Central Europe, with a total of 10,496 visitors," said Ondřej Zatloukal, director of the MUSEUM. 

Another 7,562 people came to the museums accompanying events, such as lecturer programmes, film screenings, theatre performances, concerts, lectures and other events. 

Visitors to the Archbishops Chateau in Kroměříž could not see the collections of coins, prints or music due to the reconstruction; only the picture room was open from June to October, where 4,379 people came. 

Growing social networks 

In 2022, compared to the two previous years, we returned the museums activities to the real world again, which was reflected in lower traffic to the muo.cz website. Last year it was visited by 73,000 users (343,000 page views), which is roughly 20,000 fewer than in 2021. 

The opposite trend holds for social networks, which are growing by around 5 to 10 percent each year. As of 31 December 2022, we had 11,784 followers on Facebook (2021 - 10,765), 2,317 users on Twitter (2,129) and 2,859 on Instagram (2,566). 

"The most successful post in 2022 was the post The Armoury Windows are transforming thanks to Jaro Varga into a work of art from 17 January, which reached 30,046 people on Facebook and generated 1,230 reactions," said Tomáš Kasal, PR manager of the MUO, adding that the Olomouc Museum of Art reached 443,401 people via social networks.