Band 6+: Some museums and art galleries charge admission fees, while others have free entry. Do you think the advantages of charging for admission outweigh the disadvantages? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Nowadays, many museums and art galleries are becoming commercial places, which include fees to enter. Some people argue that is because their management has to spend a lot of money to maintain their collection (BODY ADVANTAGE). Meanwhile, the other museums and art galleries are excluding any admission fees to sight seeing, particularly historical museums, whose value is educating citizens (BODY DISADVANTAGE).

With the increase of social media, some businessmen tend to open commercial museums or art galleries, which exhibit contemporary art, thus they use this agenda to attract young people to come and collect money from them. For example, in Jakarta, there is a private art gallery called XXXX, which always showcases young artists’ paintings. Many young people come to see the art because it was very famous on social media, however they have to pay a thousand hundred rupiah to enter. This is because the management has to pay a huge amount of money to rent the place, which is located in the center of Jakarta. Not only that, but they also have to maintain their collections, which cost a lot.

However, some museums and art galleries owned by the government are more likely to not include any fees for entrance. This is because those museums are dedicated to educating the citizens. Thus many governments, which are concerned with preserving historical study, are focusing on excluding the admission fees and use government spending to maintain their museums. However, a lot of museums are abandoned because even when the local government receives funding from the central, it is not enough to manage them. For instance, the Museum of Fitaleti, which is located in the north of Jakarta, is now left abandoned because of the earthquake and the government does not have enough budget allocation to revitalize it.

In conclusion, there are a lot of commercial museums and art galleries managed by private authorities which are much more attractive and treated well. However, some museums which are government properties are left abandoned because they cannot maintain them. Therefore, I believe that the advantages of charging admission fees to enter museums and art galleries outweigh the disadvantages, because managing and maintaining museums and art galleries also requires a huge amount of cost.