In 2015, the Musée du Louvre welcomed 8.6 million visitors, maintaining its position as the most popular museum in the world (9.3 million visitors in 2014). Overall, close to 9 million people came to admire the Louvre’s collections in Paris and
Lens.
Lens.
The Louvre continues to enjoy international acclaim, with foreigners representing 75% of total visitors. Among the most represented nationalities are Americans (940,000 visitors), Chinese (820,000 visitors, up 73%), Italians, Brazilians, and English.
The tragic events of January and November had an impact on attendance of French nationals, and in particular school groups. The latter dropped 25% compared with 2014 figures (510,000 school children in 2015, down from 685,000 in 2014). The museum welcomed 2 million French visitors in 2015, down from 2.58 million in 2014.
The launch in October 2015 of the Louvre’s Petite Galerie, kicked off by the inaugural exhibition “Founding Myths: From Hercules to Darth Vader,” met with huge success. Lines on the first days of the exhibition did not deter families, who continue to appreciate this space dedicated to art and cultural education.
Exhibitions in the Hall Napoléon have been well received by a demanding audience: 136,000 people came to see “Poussin and God” between March and July, and “A Brief History of the Future” brought in 114,000 starting on September 24.
Exhibitions mounted abroad were seen by more than 1.25 million people: “Genre Painting: Scenes from Daily Life” welcomed 665,000 visitors at the National Art Center, Tokyo (February–June 2015) followed by 450,000 at the Kyoto Municipal
Museum of Art (June–September 2015). The “Animals and Pharaohs” show presented at the CaixaForum in Madrid from March to August 2015 brought in an audience of some 130,000.
In Paris, about 479,000 people came to see “Velázquez” at the Grand Palais between March 25 and July 13, 2015.
Under 30s are still very common at the Louvre, representing close to 50% of total visitors. More than one visitor out of three is granted free entry (under 18; EU residents under 26; welfare recipients; people with disabilities). Since the introduction of a single ticket for permanent collections and temporary exhibitions (July 1, 2015), all of those groups enjoy free access to the entire museum.
The second edition of “Louvre at the Beach” met with huge success: close to 8,000 people participated in activities at the “From the Seine to the Nile” exhibition at Paris Plages between July 20 and August 16, 2015, i.e. an increase of 40% compared with
2014.
The Musée du Louvre-Lens has welcomed close to 1.9 million visitors since it opened three years ago (of which 400,000 in 2015). The loyalty of visitors from the Nord-Pas de Calais region (one out of every two visitors) shows that locals have fully embraced the
museum as their own. The exhibition “Animals and Pharaohs,” on view from December 4, 2014 to March 9, 2015, was seen by 106,600 people while “Gold and Ivory: Paris, Pisa, Siena, Florence (1250–1320)” brought in close to 60,000 visitors between May 27
and September 28, 2015.
The Musée National Eugène-Delacroix welcomed 51,000 visitors who enjoyed an entirely renovated reception area. In addition to an exhibition presenting 12 years of acquisitions, many events were programmed throughout the year (Printemps des Poètes, European Night of Museums, Designer’s Days, FIAC, etc.).
The Louvre’s website, and especially the new platform for purchasing tickets online, ticketlouvre.fr, is attracting more and more Internet users (16.5 million visits, a 15% increase from 2014). Of all museums, the Louvre has the most followers on Facebook and will soon hit the 2-million mark. It is the most geotagged place on Instagram. Now active on Chinese social media such as Weibo and WeChat, the Musée du Louvre has a presence in 14 accounts with a total of 3.4 million subscribers.
Visitors still use and enjoy the Louvre Nintendo 3DS audio guide, with an 8% user rate, i.e. approximately 500,000 users.
The Louvre Auditorium welcomed 50,000 auditors in 2015. The “24 Hours with Leonardo da Vinci” weekend, a new program to better understand one of the giants of art history, was a huge success, bringing in audiences of 2,800.
