How Madrid's Prado Museum is trying to avoid becoming like the Metro at rush-hour'

"Friday morning found Diego Velazquez striking the familiar pose he has held for the past 370 years, staring out, brush in one hand, palette in the other, from the huge canvas of Las Meninas. The 14 people who stood before the painting to meet the Spanish artist's haughty gaze not to mention the heavy eyes of the dozy mastiff in the picture's foreground were among the first visitors of the day to Madrid's Prado Museum."

"On Wednesday, Miguel Falomir told a press conference that the museum, which welcomed a record 3.5 million visitors last year, felt a threshold had been reached. The Prado doesn't need a single visitor more, he said. We feel comfortable with 3.5 million. A museum's success can collapse it, like the Louvre, with some rooms becoming oversaturated. The important thing is not to collapse. With that in mind, Falomir added, the Prado was exploring how best to preserve and preferably enhance the visitor experience."

"Among the ideas for guaranteeing quality over quantity are optimising entrances to the museum, rethinking the size of visiting groups, and making sure people know they are not allowed to take photos in the galleries. The queues of mid-January can hardly be compared with those of the summer months, when they stretch on and on beneath the merciless Madrid sun, but getting into the museum this week proved painless."

The Prado Museum received a record 3.5 million visitors last year and regards that as a comfortable threshold. The museum's director warned that continued growth risks overcrowding galleries and diminishing the quality of visits. Proposed measures include optimising entrances, rethinking visiting group sizes, and enforcing no-photography rules to protect the experience. Mid-January entry proved quick after online ticket purchase, with minimal queues and fast security. Management prioritises preserving and preferably enhancing the visitor experience rather than pursuing higher visitor numbers, and is exploring practical changes to achieve that balance.

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