When London’s museums started losing visitors, they decided to get creative
Faced with falling visitor numbers, the British capital’s museums – both old and new – have a plan to win back the crowds. But will it work?
London’s museum scene is in a slump. The number of visitors to the Tate Modern and National Gallery in 2025 was down 26 per cent and 31 per cent, respectively, from 2019. In the last three months of 2025, visits to state-funded museums in England – all of them free since 2001 – fell more than 8 per cent from 2019.
Museums themselves cite varying reasons, including a decline in international travellers, despite tourism bouncing back after the Covid-19 pandemic, and fewer visitors in their teens and 20s arriving from the European Union after Brexit.
An independent 2025 report, “Curating Connection”, in the UK highlighted streaming services, immersive pop-ups, virtual art experiences and “creator-led storytelling” on TikTok and YouTube as threats to the museums sector.
“For younger audiences especially, the ‘cultural fix’ increasingly happens outside traditional institutions,” the report concluded.
But a wave of London venues – from a revamped London Museum, to two new outposts of the V&A, to a Museum of Youth Culture dedicated entirely to the experiences of teenagers – is aiming to grab the attention of museum-goers once more.
Museum of Youth Culture co-founder Jamie Brett acknowledges the challenge: “Museums are under real pressure to refresh and rethink collections. We have to create something that actually requires a bricks-and-mortar visit, something worth coming out for.”
