The Met invites New Yorkers to “Go to The Met” in new Spring ad campaign

Building on the strong attendance of the past several months, The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today a major advertising campaign that invites New Yorkers to “Go to The Met” and take advantage of the world-class institution right in their backyard. All New York State residents and students from New Jersey and Connecticut can choose the amount they pay for admission to The Met, a fact the Museum highlights in the campaign.

As a signal of the Museum’s enthusiasm for welcoming both new and returning visitors, The Met developed a multimedia campaign featuring New Yorkers who are regular visitors to the Museum sharing the reasons why they go to The Met. The campaign began running in local media in early February and can be seen on YouTube and streaming TV, in The New York Times and on social media, and on the subway and LinkNYC street-level screens, as well as heard on WNYC radio, among other placements over the coming months.

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“Ask 10 New Yorkers why they go to The Met and you’ll get 12 different and inspiring answers,” said Ken Weine, Chief Communications Officer at the Museum. “Some go for a date night, others to enjoy a quiet moment in front of a favorite work of art, and others to take advantage of living in the greatest city in the world. This campaign is launching at a key moment for The Met, as we continue to build back attendance. We’re inviting all New Yorkers to come and experience the world-class Met as their hometown museum by communicating that the collection has something for everyone, the experience is affordable, and all are welcome.”

Created in partnership with the Museum’s agency AKA NYC, the campaign features seven New Yorkers of all ages sharing their reasons for going to The Met, including:

“When I go to The Met, I feel like I’m home.”
“What I love about El Met is that it’s our museum, nuestro museo.”
“I like to bring friends, bring family.”
“It’s so welcoming and beautiful.”
“You can learn about your past, your parents’ past, your grandparents’ past.”
“I go to The Met to find myself again.”
“It offers me a place of endless inspiration.”
“I come here to fall in love with New York again.”
The Met was among the first museums to close when the pandemic struck New York City, on March 13, 2020, and was among the first to reopen on August 29, 2020. Prior to the pandemic, the Museum had not been closed for longer than three days in more than 100 years. Since reopening in August 2020, The Met has steadily welcomed an increasing number of visitors—beginning with 4,000 a day when it reopened to more than 11,000 a day today. In recent weeks, The Met’s average attendance has grown to about 85 percent of pre-pandemic levels. The 2023 Presidents’ Day holiday weekend drew 53,000 visitors in a three-day period (February 18–20). With a much-anticipated spring season approaching, The Met expects the campaign to build on the existing momentum among local audiences.

The Museum has a blockbuster spring ahead:

Van Gogh’s Cypresses (May 22–August 27, 2023), is the first exhibition to focus on the trees—among the most famous in the history of art—immortalized in signature images by Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890). For the first time in over a century, The Met’s Wheat Field with Cypresses will be reunited with the Museum of Modern Art’s The Starry Night in a presentation of some 40 works that affords an unprecedented perspective on a motif virtually synonymous with the Dutch artist’s fiercely original power of expression.

Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty (May 5–July 16, 2023), the Costume Institute’s spring 2023 exhibition, will examine the work of Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019). Focusing on the designer’s stylistic vocabulary as expressed in aesthetic themes that appear time and again in his fashions from the 1950s to his final collection in 2019, the show will spotlight his designs for Chanel, Chloé, Fendi, and his eponymous label, as well as Balmain and Patou.
In April, The Met’s popular Roof Garden Commission series returns with a site-specific installation by Los Angeles–based artist Lauren Halsey on view April 18–October 22, 2023. Halsey will create a full-scale architectural structure imbued with the collective energy and imagination of the South Central Los Angeles community where she was born and continues to work.

The Spring 2023 season will also bring a slate of new programming, with shows on important artists like Juan de Pareja, Cecily Brown, and Berenice Abbott, as well as an exhibition at The Met Cloisters on art, class, and commerce in a late medieval town.

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