Alistair Hardaker | Image: National Gallery
Partnership with Bloomberg Connects funds 60-stop collections guide reduced from £7 to free as gallery works to remove barriers.
The National Gallery has made its audio guide free from today, having previously charged up to £7 for access.
From Monday 19 October, the National Gallery Collection Audio Guide will be free for all visitors to its site at Trafalgar Square for the first time.
The audio guide is available via visitors’ smartphones, by scanning a QR code in the gallery or clicking a link on the website.
Ticketed exhibitions, such as Renoir and Love (until 31 January 2027) have a separate paid audio guide, which can be booked when buying exhibition tickets or on arrival at the exhibition.
The guide features 60 stops, with voices including writer and actor Sir Stephen Fry, astrophysicist Dr Becky Smethurst, and National Gallery director Sir Gabriele Finaldi.
Finaldi said it was “important to recognise that in the tough times we are all going through art can often feel inaccessible.
“The Gallery is always working to remove what barriers we can, and so we are glad to be able to make the Collection Audio Guide free to all visitors, courtesy of Bloomberg Connects, and to be able to share these insights about our wonderful collection with our visitors.”
The free access has been provided through the gallery’s partnership with Bloomberg Connects, the free arts and culture app from Bloomberg Philanthropies and the National Gallery’s Digital Innovation Partner 2026–2028. The partnership began with the National Gallery’s Digital Accelerator Program, which ran from 2021 to 2024.
Bloomberg Connects is already used for tours at the National Portrait Gallery and Dulwich Picture Gallery, and provides museum guides to around 1,000 museums worldwide.
