We interrupt your regularly scheduled newsfeed of culinary drama, steroid allegations, and frog talk to bring you some cinema news. As part of its new budget plan, The Smithsonian raised prices last week for individual movie tickets by 25 cents while lowering the “add a show” price by $2.
Jule Banville, Washington City Paper‘s assistant managing editor and a regular at the Natural History Museum’s Johnson IMAX Theatre, observed that the prices prior to the raise weren’t exactly cheap (this author concurs).
Says the Smithsonian’s Holly Williamson, “Our price increases are always planned for and implemented so that there is no dramatic rise within a given year. The last increase was in 2006, when prices rose $0.50.”
The reduced “add a show” cost—now $4 instead of $6—as well as the 25-cent increase only apply to “mission,” aka, “non-Hollywood, daytime films.” That means visitors will pay full price (somewhere between $10.50 and $12.50) to see Night at The Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, and can tack on an educational feature or planetarium show to kill time or occupy the kiddies for $2 less than they’d pay otherwise.
Below is a handy-dandy price chart, courtesy of Williamson:
IMAX or Planetarium Show | “Add a Show” | Feature Film | |
Members | $6.50 | $4.00 | $10.50 |
Adults (13-59) | $8.75 | $4.00 | $12.50 |
Seniors (60+) | $7.75 | $4.00 | $11.50 |
Youth (2-12) | $7.25 | $4.00 | $11.00 |