Next year’s Rotterdam museum night cancelled in free ticket row

A dispute over free tickets with some of Rotterdam’s biggest museums has led to next year’s Museum Night being cancelled.

Museum Night is an annual event at which museums and galleries open in the evening and organise special events to attract new visitors. This year’s Rotterdam event in March attracted over 160,000 visitors to 60 different locations.

The organisers say they have been forced to cancel the 2015 edition because museums located on the city’s museum park – including the natural history museum, the Kunsthal and the Boijmans Van Beuningen – have decided to give Museum Night visitors free entry.

This, the organisers say, make it likely they will not sell enough passe-partout tickets to cover the costs. ‘The fact that the six museums have gone it alone in offering free entry makes it too risky financially,’ the Museum Night foundation said.