INDIANAPOLIS — The four museums that line the downtown Indianapolis canal are all seeking ways to boost their attendance, with one aiming to attract people from the crowds drawn to the waterway during the warm-weather months.
The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art is making its canal plans after its visitor figures fell 11 percent for 2009 to about 99,000. The neighboring Indiana State Museum is the largest of the attractions, but it recorded a 10 percent decline in total attendance in the past year to about 370,000.
"It still has a lot of untapped potential," Eiteljorg President John Vanausdall told the Indianapolis Business Journal. "It's clear there are a lot of tourists out there, looking for things to do."
The canal area also includes the Indiana Historical Society and the NCAA Hall of Champions, both of which have seen modest attendance.
State museum interim CEO Tom King said it would have seen a bigger decline without two successful Abraham Lincoln exhibits in the spring. The museum is looking for a boost from traveling exhibits with popular appeal, such as "Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition," which opens Sept. 25.
King, however, doesn't see the canal crowd as an easy sell.
"People come to a museum to see something and to learn something," he said. "Somebody that just came down for a casual stroll probably isn't going to walk in and pay seven bucks and see what's there."
The NCAA's Hall of Champions reopened in March 2009 after a fire and subsequent renovation closed it in late 2007. Total attendance from September through May was 42,634. Thanks to big crowds during the NCAA men's basketball Final Four, the hall probably will end up close to its pre-renovation years, said Damon Schoening, its events director.
"I would attribute a good number of our daily visitors to the traffic that comes about as a result of being in the park, especially in the warmer months," Schoening said. "We've had a very busy summer."
Schoening said the museums might be helped by other downtown developments — such as the three new hotels overlooking White River State Park, which has the Hall of Champions and the state museum on its eastern end.
Tourists who stayed downtown for the NCAA Final Four last spring definitely made side trips to the Hall of Champions, which had 10,000 visitors on one weekend, he said.
"The park as a whole is evolving," Schoening said. "This part of the city really became the epicenter."
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