Alistair Hardaker | Early concept visualisation © Trustees of The British Museum
The single biggest day of ticket sales in its history saw online queues of up to 80,000 people
The British Museum has reported the single biggest day of ticket sales in its history, as visitors book for its upcoming Bayeux Tapestry exhibition.
The museum reports over £2.5m was raised through advanced ticket sales in one day, bigger than any exhibition it has held.
Its website saw an online queue of over 80,000 visitors, and its website saw 4.7 times its average daily traffic as hundreds of thousands of people tried to gain access to the site across the day.
At its peak, the museum advised the online wait time could be as long as nine hours.
Tickets for the exhibition have ranged from £12.50 for National Art Pass holders at off-peak to £33 for a standard adult ticket at peak times.
Tickets are now sold out, but new batches are planned for dates between January and March and April and July.
Dr Nicholas Cullinan OBE, Director of the British Museum, said the demand “reflects the unique opportunity this exhibition brings and the appetite of the public for more arts and culture.”
It was announced last week that the exhibition would feature The William Charter, the oldest document in The London Archives. The Charter, dating from 1067, confirms the rights and privileges of Londoners and bears one of the earliest surviving seals from William the Conqueror’s reign.
