Record breaking summer at the Canterbury Museum

More than 100,000 people visited Canterbury Museum and its special exhibition Quake City in January, the highest-ever visitor numbers recorded in a single month, as tourists and locals return to the central city in ever-increasing numbers.

The record-breaking month (102,527 visitors) was up almost 5% on the 98,012 visitors welcomed in January 2014 when the previous record for the month of January was set. The Museum is on course to break its annual record of 666,000 visitors in the 2014/2015 year.

Commenting on the visitor figures, Museum Director Anthony Wright stated “it’s fantastic to see so many people enjoying the Museum and out on the streets in the Cultural Precinct – visiting the newly-opened Christchurch Art Gallery, enjoying the Botanic Gardens and seeing the progress in restoring the Arts Centre.”

Wright advised that the Christmas holiday period has been incredibly busy with throngs of people in the Museum throughout the day, adding “our two temporary exhibitions – Da Vinci Mechanics and Corrugations: the Art of Jeff Thomson have proved very popular with visitors of all ages, along with Museum favourites including Fred & Myrtle’s Paua Shell House, the Christchurch Street and Discovery, our natural history centre for children.

“It’s fantastic to see so many people enjoying the Museum and out on the streets in the Cultural Precinct – visiting the newly-opened Christchurch Art Gallery, enjoying the Botanic Gardens and seeing the progress in restoring the Arts Centre.

“Quake City, our special exhibition in RE:Start Mall which tells stories from the Canterbury earthquakes, has been very busy as well with the increased number of tourists in the city.

“The January figures come on top of great visitor numbers in December, when 72,018 people visited, many enjoying the magic of Christmas at the Museum with our special event, A Victorian Christmas.

“This was just short of our previous December record of 73,210 set in 2013 when the RISE! street art exhibition opened.”

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