Annual visitation - DCITHS Cultural institutions

Supporting the community to strengthen social cohesion and belonging by collecting, protecting and celebrating NSW's stories, artefacts, content, arts, culture and heritage experiences.

NSW is home to the oldest and most distinctive cultural institutions in the country. Visitation rates to our cultural institutions have surged past our pre-COVID records, with the Australian Museum recording the highest visitation rate in its almost 200-year history and more than 2 million visitors to the new expanded Art Gallery of NSW campus Naala Badu and Naala Nura. Expanding access to online engagement has been hugely significant too, with more than 21 million views globally of Sydney Opera House videos (in addition to its 10 million visitors to the site each year) and 4.6 million sessions on the State Library's website. Investment in the Powerhouse (MAAS) sites will support sharing its exhibitions with more people across NSW. The Museums of History NSW experienced growing visitation across their sites, which bring history to life through diverse voices and viewpoints.

Note on the data:

The data provided here reflects a reproduction of onsite visitation figures that have been published in the respective cultural institutions annual report. The data does not reflect offsite engagement activities (e.g. offsite public programs and touring activity). It also relates only to the primary site of visitation, for example, The State Library of NSW helps administer all public libraries in NSW (under the Library Act 1939) and visitation to these local libraries is not included in the above State Library visitation figure. In 2023-24, there were over 26 million visits to NSW public libraries. In that year, $40.89m of the State Library’s budget was provided for public library funding to local councils.

Each individual annual report includes supporting information such as closures or attendance limitations due to revitalisation, refurbishment, COVID measures, and COVID recovery measures such as free admission.

Each cultural institution has its own methodology and categorisation of onsite visitation, and attendance rates are not directly comparable.

Data gaps: For 2018-19 only, the State Library published a combined online and onsite visitation figure. The data for the State Library for this year included above is on-site visitation only, which was sources directly from the State Library (i.e. not their annual report). The Museums of History NSW was created in 2022, incorporating stewardship responsibilities for the State Archives and for significant museums, houses and collections. Previous data from the annual reports of the State Archives and Records Authority of NSW (SARA) (reading room and onsite programming) and Sydney Living Museums (total onsite visitation including grounds) from 2018-19 to 2021-22 have been included for comparison before 2022.