Amsterdam Museum: Visitor figures 2021 and outlook 2022

At the end of the year, the Amsterdam Museum received 58,000 visitors at its main location at 92 Kalverstraat (in 2020 there were 51,435), 6,000 visitors at Huis Willet-Holthuysen, 37,000 visitors at the exhibition Group portraits of the 17th century in the Amsterdam Museum wing of the Hermitage Amsterdam and another 37,000 visitors in the joint fashion exhibition with De Nieuwe Kerk; Maison Amsterdam. A total of 138,000 visitors. Also relevant is the tour the museum made through the Netherlands with the Mobile Research Installation around the Golden Coach, this visited 14 cities and spoke to hundreds of people. Like other museums, the Amsterdam Museum was closed from 5 December 2020 to 5 June 2021 due to the corona measures.

Director Judikje Kiers: ''Relative to 2019, the last year before corona, the visitor numbers are of course still disappointing. Nevertheless, I am happy that during the months we were able to be open and within the measures in place, we still received a significant number of visitors per day, especially for our exhibitions The Golden Coach and Freethinkers - from Spinoza to the present. We have a decrease in visitors of around 35 per cent in the period from June to December compared to 2019. We are happy to see that many museum card holders from all over the Netherlands came to the Amsterdam Museum for our exhibitions.''

During the period that coronagraphs allowed, the Amsterdam Museum organised 35 physical public programmes. Such as a Keti Koti meal around the glass house in which the Golden Coach is displayed, a symposium on the Netherlands' colonial past and Museum Night. Over 3,000 visitors attended a physical programme at the Amsterdam Museum. Especially for primary, secondary and MBO pupils, the Amsterdam Museum offered special educational programmes. The museum collaborated with 81 schools and welcomed 4,351 pupils (167 classes). Partly thanks to a student campaign (students could visit the museum for free from September onwards by showing their student ID card), the Amsterdam Museum welcomed over 4,000 students this year.

The Amsterdam Museum was closed for the first five months of 2021. The Amsterdam Museum therefore put great effort into its digital offerings, which resulted in high digital visitor numbers. The Amsterdam Museum hosted 26 digital audience programmes in 2021, which were watched a total of 72,475 times via YouTube or through the Amsterdam Museum's social media channels. For example, the weekly talk show AM Live on Thursday nights weekly accounted for hundreds of viewers, it Refresh Symposium was streamed 26,900 times and sent to the Queer History Talk was watched 10,112 times. The Livestream of the Pink Dance Palace during Pride was viewed a whopping 5,300 times. The Amsterdam Museum podcast was also listened to by thousands of people.

The Amsterdam Museum website was visited 168,569 times, up 11.3% from 2020. The digital exhibition Corona in the City by the Amsterdam Museum with many partners in the city about the corona pandemic, has now been visited by 206,198 people. Other digital platforms of the Amsterdam Museum - such as degoudenkoets.nl, vrijdenkers.nl, refreshamsterdam.nl and hart.amsterdam.nl - were visited about another 200,000 times.

On social media, the Amsterdam Museum managed to reach over 65,000 people with informative mini-documentaries about Refresh Amsterdam, The Golden Coach and Freethinkers, which were produced by the museum to complement the exhibitions.

The Amsterdam Museum was nominated by an expert jury for the Museum Prize 2021, the most important museum prize in the Netherlands, due to its innovative strength and wide digital offering.

Until 27 February 2021, the Golden Coach can be viewed up close and at leisure in the Amsterdam Museum's historic building at 92 Kalverstraat. In six museum rooms around the courtyard where the carriage stands, hundreds of cultural-historical objects, paintings, garments, cartoons, photographs, moving images and contemporary works of art provide a multifaceted picture of the history and use of the Golden Coach and past and present discussions about this iconic vehicle. The Amsterdam Museum also invites visitors to share their views on the Golden Coach.

Until 27 February, the exhibition Freethinkers. From Spinoza to today connections between contemporary events and historical developments in the field of freethinking. The exhibition encourages reflection and discussion. What is a freethinker? The exhibition is an initiative of the Amsterdam Museum and the 75-year-old Humanistisch Verbond.

Pending the environmental permit - the go-ahead for the renovation and conversion of the museum complex on Kalverstraat - preparations for the move continue steadily. From Monday 28 February, the doors of the former Citizens' Orphanage will close. During the multi-year renovation, the Amsterdam Museum will remain open; visitors are welcome in the Amsterdam Museum wing in the Hermitage Amsterdam from 5 March 2022.

On Saturday 5 March 2022, the Amsterdam Museum will move to the Hermitage Amsterdam (Amstel 51) for three-and-a-half years. During that period, the Amsterdam Museum will present a new experimental collection presentation in the Amsterdam Museum wing of the Hermitage, designed by Studio LA. Iconic works and audience favourites from the Amsterdam Museum's collection will be complemented by new 'finds' from the depot and the work of contemporary makers. In this way, we tell the city's more well-known histories as well as its lesser-known and more recent ones. In the coming years, the Amsterdam Museum will also present various temporary exhibitions and an extensive education and public programme in the Hermitage.

Huis Willet-Holthuysen will host a solo exhibition by Maaike Schoorel from 7 May 2022. For the occasion, Schoorel will produce six new paintings and, for the first time in her career, a space-filling site-specific installation. The subject of Schoorel's work is the history of the property and, in particular, the role of Louisa Holthuysen, the collector who gave the property to the municipality in 1895 with the task of turning it into a museum in which the art collection and interiors of the property collected by her, and her husband Abraham Willet, play a central role. The exhibition is the first in a series of contemporary interventions at Huis Willet-Holthuysen. A new education programme will also be offered at Huis Willet-Holthuysen from May 2022.

The Amsterdam Museum is also collaborating with various partners in 2022. The fashion exhibition Maison Amsterdam, a collaboration with De Nieuwe Kerk, will be on show until 3 April 2022. In January, the family performance (8+) The Golden Coach by Urban Myth is still playing in various theatres around the country. The Amsterdam Museum is a partner of this production. In the project Faces of North Holland, the Amsterdam Museum collaborates with the Frans Hals Museum. Various presentations will be shown throughout the province in 2022. Music evenings and a temporary presentation on Amsterdam North will be organised together with Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ and Massih Hutak, and with CBK Zuidoost, the Amsterdam Museum will offer an Artist-in-Residence Programme and create an exhibition, as in previous years.