Prepared for Bumps, the Met Starts Charging Non-New Yorkers.

'In the two months since the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced a momentous change for visitors — charging $25 to those who live outside New York State, instead of letting them pay what they wish — the museum has gone to great lengths to prepare for Day 1.

But as the new mandatory fee goes into effect Thursday morning, it is far from clear whether there will be chaos or business as usual in the Met’s Great Hall entry area; whether people will agreeably pay the required admission; and whether impassioned opponents will come to accept it.

“It’s like taking the jacket off a poor person,” the artist Ai Weiwei said of the new fee, which was announced in January. “I will never go to the Metropolitan. Am I calling for a boycott? No. But I myself will not go.”

Daniel Weiss, the Met’s president and chief executive officer, has made a concerted effort to explain why the new fee is necessary to bolster one of the world’s largest and most renowned cultural institutions. The proportion of museumgoers who pay a “suggested” amount has declined from 63 percent to 17 percent over the last 13 years, even as Met attendance has surged from 4.7 million to 7 million.

The Met has also been girding for the logistical challenges of checking proof of residence without segregating people in a separate line as if they were second-class visitors. (Students in the tristate region don’t have to pay the new fee, and the ticket is good for three days of admission to the Met, the Met Breuer and the Cloisters).'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/arts/design/metropolitan-museum-of-art-starts-charging-non-new-yorkers.html?