Austerity Tours Offered by Museum of Vancouver

Leading up to the civic election this fall, the Museum of Vancouver will hosts Austerity Tours to highlight the problems, risks and missed opportunities museums typically hide from view. The aim is to make voters understand the risks austerity pose to irreplaceable cultural heritage.

Austerity Tours Offered by Museum of Vancouver

• Dates: Thursdays, September 24, October 1, 8, 15, 2026 5:30pm-6:30pm
• Location: Museum of Vancouver (1100 Chestnut St, Vancouver)
• Tickets: By donation on a sliding scale. RSVPs required.

To show the tangible impacts of stagnant public funding, Ryan Hunt, the MOV’s CEO, is offering behind-the-scenes tours to show what is lost when all levels of government choose not to invest in public assets. From buckets that catch leaks and the oldest continuously operating freezer in Vancouver, to a vintage iPod used to power exhibitions, and, depending on the weather, a hallway filled with ants.

The tour will also include:

• Access to areas not normally available to the public
• How MOV’s fabrication team produces new exhibitions at a fraction of the cost of the industry standard
• Discussions with the team responsible for safeguarding the largest civic collection of objects in Canada
• Imagining what a revitalized civic museum could achieve

“We’re winning national awards for our impact one day and then watching decades-old pieces of critical equipment inch ever-closer to failure the next. No matter how successful we are, sustainable funding feels unreachable,” adds Hunt. “Over the past 30 years, admissions have grown faster than the industry average and even faster than Vancouver’s population growth, but during that same period, we’ve seen government support decrease against the rate of inflation. It feels like we’re bailing out a boat with more and more holes in it.”

While visitation has nearly tripled since the 1990s and creative revenue-generating programs like wedding rentals, drop-in yoga, and craft fairs have launched, inflationary pressures have decreased public funding by an average of 4% year-over-year while the cost of goods and labour have doubled. Despite increases in earned revenue, stagnant public funding means that even though the MOV is earning more money than ever, its operations are less sustainable than ever.

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