The National Museum's Communications

Throughout 2016, the National Museum promoted its events and exhibitions in the media. 13 press conferences were organized on the museum’s premises, and 72 press releases and announcements were sent out, presenting exhibitions, events and other activities of the National Museum. The National Museum further continued its close cooperation with its media partners, Czech Radio and Czech Television, and established cooperation with other media in the form of partnerships for individual exhibitions and projects. The museum’s website, www.nm.cz, social networks and the news portal www.muzeum3000.cz, which represent the National Museum’s main communication tools, played an important role in publicizing events and projects. 
Regarding the National Museum’s activities, items associated with the reconstruction of the Historical building were most communicated, together with items concerning exhibitions to mark the 700th anniversary of the birth of Charles IV, the exhibition project "Window to the World” and the results of research by the National Museum’s experts. Other exceptional topics were promoted, too; for example, the discovery of world significance in the collection of the Czech Museum of Music – a print of a supposedly lost composition by Mozart and Salieri. 

Prague Museum Night

The thirteenth year of Prague Museum Night, which was again coordinated by the National Museum in 2016, took place on Saturday, 11 June from 19:00 to 01:00. 52 institutions, which made 80 buildings accessible to visitors, took part in this popular cultural and representative event to promote the activities of museums and galleries. 175,000 admissions were recorded during the event. The main organizers of Prague Museum Night are the National Museum, the Prague Public Transport Company and the Association of Museums and Galleries of the Czech Republic. In 2016, the event was organized once again with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and the City of Prague.

Attendance

Compared to 2015, the National Museum buildings recorded another year-over-year increase in the number of visitors by over 40,000 in 2016. The increased attendance numbers were greatly aided by the very successful exhibition “Retro” in the New Building, and also by the completion of the partial reconstruction and the subsequent full operation of the New Building, which increased the number of visitors to the “Noah’s Ark” exhibition.   Exhibition projects in the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures can also be evaluated as positive in the long term. The Czech Museum of Music and the National Memorial on Vítkov Hill both show stable attendance numbers. Over the next few years, it will be interesting to watch for changes in the number of visitors in relation to the re-opening of the reconstructed historical building of the National Museum in 2018.