There are a few services like this that already exist!
- Members to the American Alliance of Museums get free entry to hundreds of museums.
- Bank of America cardholders get free entry to a large amount of museums (not sure how many participants) the first full weekend of each month.
- Many regional museum council members get free admission to local museums.
- (There's probably more that I just don't know about)
The one missing piece here are these service-providers compensating individual museums for the free admission. I think that museums are instead compensated with the increased admission numbers, which museums can then bring to potential funders to prove why they should donate to the museum, plus the benefits of word-of-mouth as a means for attracting new visitors.
It's hard for me to imagine how an organization like AAM would find the funds to compensate the hundreds of participating museums, or at least give a meaningful level of compensation. Bank of America certainly does... I'm not sure if they give any financial support to their participating museums, though.
Do you think it would be easier to convince one of these service providers to change their model to start compensating participating museums, or to create an entirely new subscription service that is able to compensate participating museums? And where do you envision those funds coming from?
RE: Subscription Service for Museums