The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently announced that it welcomed more than 5.5 million visitors to its two locations, The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters, in the fiscal year that ended on June 30. As the museums attendance continues to rebound following the pandemic, the number of domestic out-of-state visitors reached pre-pandemic levels this year and the number of local New York City visitors exceeded pre-pandemic figures, a 102 percentrecovery compared to 2019. Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) visitors accounted for a record-high 56 percent of The Mets attendees from the United States, a figure bolstered by a diverse and robust suite of programs and exhibitions, including The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism, which has welcomed more than 437,000 visitors, and the annual Lunar New Year Festival, held this year on Feb. 3, which drew 26,700 visitors. The Mets mission is to connect all people to creativity, knowledge, ideas, and one another, and were honored to be able welcome so many from near and far to the museum, said Max Hollein, the museums Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. The Met is committed to presenting a wide array of exhibitions, collection displays, activities, and events, and were thrilled to see our programming resonating so strongly with increasingly diverse audiences. In the past fiscal year, audiences were presented with several ways to deepen their engagement with the museum, including a wider range of offerings prior to entering the galleries. In September 2023, the museum opened its popular 81st Street Studio, an active art and discovery play space for children and their caregivers, which attracted more than 170,000 visitors since its inception. Contemporary sculptures in the niches of the museums facade, The Facade Commission: Nairy Baghramian, Scratching the Back, intrigued both passersby on Fifth Avenue and visitors entering through the main steps, who, once inside, were greeted by yet another compelling and intriguing display, The Great Hall Commission: Jacolby Satterwhite, A Metta Prayer, which transformed the historic space with a site-specific multimedia installation. Exhibitions on view in fiscal year 2024 (FY24) that contributed to the strong attendance included Van Goghs Cypresses (495,000 visitors), Richard Avedon: MURALS (392,000), Manet/Degas (351,000), and The Roof Garden Commission: Lauren Halsey (334,000). Other FY24 exhibitions that drew high attendance included Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty, Women Dressing Women, and Tree & Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India, 200 BCE400 CE, and the reopening of The Mets galleries dedicated to European Paintings from 1300 to 1800 was also an attendance highlight. In January 2024, The Met introduced an online ticketing option for New York state residents that allows them to forego in-person lines and reserve pay-what-you-wish tickets on the museums website. New York state residents and New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut students with valid student IDs can still access pay-what-you-wish admission at the museum while children under 12 receive free admission. May 2024 saw the 10th anniversary of Teens Take The Met! and the event welcomed over 3,700 teens from across the five boroughs. In June, the annual Museum Mile festival drew over 8,800 guests to the museum.