Maria Balshaw says upheaval has kept young Europeans away from London sites, contributing to a 27% attendance drop since 2019
The Tate galleries in London are struggling to attract young European visitors after Brexit and the pandemic, with the art institution’s leader blaming the demographic shift for a steep decline in attendance figures.
Maria Balshaw, the director of Tate, said the impact of Covid and leaving the EU was keeping 16- to 24-year-olds away from the two sites in the capital. Annual attendance data from the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (Alva) released in March showed that Tate Modern and Tate Britain had a 27% decline in attendance since 2019 – a drop of 2.2 million visitors.
Tate’s attendances were particularly poor compared with other cultural attractions in London: the National Portrait Gallery only had a 3% dip over the same period, while the British Museum had 4%.
Balshaw highlighted internal research that showed domestic visitor numbers are at 95% of pre-Covid levels, but international numbers are only at 61%.
