As the Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of
the Pharaohs exhibit heads into its final days at the Museum of Art
Fort Lauderdale, the museum calculated that it has brought an
estimated $150 million in revenue to the city.
According to the
museum, more than 640,000 tickets have been sold during its
four-month run, many of them from outside the area; Tut hotel
packages alone added up to more than $1 million in room revenue,
the museum reported.
To accommodate
the demand for the exhibition, the museum has extended viewing
hours until 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights through the end
of its run April 23.
The exhibit
includes more than 130 artifacts from the tombs of King Tut and
those of his relatives and contemporaries from the 18th Dynasty,
dating from 1555 B.C. to 1305 B.C.
Before the
current run of shows, the artifacts from the exhibit last appeared
in the U.S. during a seven-city tour from 1976 to 1979. This time
around, the show concluded its run in Los Angeles Nov. 20 prior to
making its debut in Fort Lauderdale Dec. 15.
After leaving
Fort Lauderdale, the show will move to The Field Museum in Chicago,
May 26 to Jan. 1, followed by a stint at the Franklin Institute in
Philadelphia, Feb. 3 to Sept. 30, 2007.
Tickets to the
Tut exhibit at the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale are priced from
$14 to $30 and can be purchased by calling (877) 787-7711 or on the
Web at www.ticketmaster.com. For more information about the
exhibition, visit www.nationalgeographic.com/tut or www.kingtut.org.
To contact
the reporter who wrote this article, send e-mail to David Cogswell
at [email protected].