The Hong Kong Palace Museum’s blockbuster exhibition “Ancient Egypt Unveiled: Treasures from Egyptian Museums” has attracted 76,000 visitors since its opening, making it the museum’s most visited exhibition to date, Museum Director Louis Ng Chi-wa said.
The exhibition, which opened late last month and runs until August 31 next year, has seen particularly strong demand, with Ng noting that it recorded the highest single-day attendance since the museum opened.
He said ticketing arrangements had since been streamlined, allowing most visitors to enter within 15 minutes despite earlier reports of long queues and crowding.
Ng said local visitors account for about 40 percent of attendees, while visitors from the mainland and overseas each make up around 30 percent. He added that the museum’s total visitor count this year is expected to reach one million, up from more than 900,000 recorded last year, driven in part by the popularity of the Egypt exhibition.
The museum has also seen strong sales of cultural and creative products linked to the exhibition.
Ng said the museum’s first-ever blind box collectibles had been a major success, with the initial batch of 18,000 units selling out. Additional stock will be released in phases, while the popular Pharaoh-themed black cat plush toys, which previously sparked buying frenzies, are expected to be restocked early next week. Ng said the museum plans to further expand its range of cultural merchandise.
While revenue from cultural products helps offset some operating costs and contributes to higher footfall, the museum estimates that around 70 to 80 percent of visitors are primarily drawn by the exhibition content itself.
The museum has also stepped up promotion beyond Hong Kong. A recent roadshow in Foshan resulted in the sale of about 150 “HKPM Friends” memberships within two weeks, with families and young people making up the majority of buyers.
The museum believes some members may be first-time or long-absent visitors to Hong Kong, and expects their visits to help boost local tourism.
Looking ahead, the Hong Kong Palace Museum will launch nine new exhibitions next year. These include four new thematic exhibitions co-organized with the Palace Museum in Beijing, and three major special exhibitions jointly presented with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Museum of Asian Arts-Guimet, and the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
The museum will also curate two new thematic exhibitions of its own, focusing on multimedia works by Hong Kong artists inspired by Chinese mythological creatures, as well as works created and donated by calligrapher, painter, and collector Huang Junshi.
One of the key highlights will be the new exhibition on jewelry from the world collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, scheduled to open in April next year. The exhibition will be, in Hong Kong, the first large-scale showcase of world jewelry spanning nearly 4,000 years across six continents.
Meanwhile, another major exhibition will present the cultural and artistic traditions of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Galleries 1, 2, and 5 at the museum will also feature completely new displays next year.
marco.lam@singtaonewscorp.com
