The Smithsonian’s African American History Museum is set to open in two days but tickets are already in such high demand that they’re being scalped online – even though entrance to the museum is free.
Due to popular demand, the Smithsonian has begun issuing timed passes to interested visitors. As it stands, the earliest passes available are in November, and no weekend slots are open for the remainder of the year.
Eyeing a gap in the market, scalpers have begun selling tickets to the museum online. According to the Washingtonian, tickets reached as high as $200 on Washington’s Craigslist. On Thursday, the most expensive tickets were $80.
The Smithsonian declined to comment on the scalpers.
One seller on Craigslist, who asked not to be named, sells tickets to a variety of other events and is selling tickets to the museum’s opening ceremony for $50 after getting them for free from the museum, he told the Guardian. The scalper said the response to his ad has been “mixed”, as some people have been upset that he’s selling tickets to a free event that is a “once in a lifetime experience”.
“However the same effort I put into getting them, they could have done as well. Getting tickets for this was VERY easy and effortless,” he said in reference to people complaining. “This is a ‘problem’ that Smithsonian has created themselves. It is smart of them to have ticketed entry since there is such a demand and it helps them with crowd control. However, it creates a market for resellers like myself and it makes the event exclusionary.”
However, he does not see the event being a long-term business as he thinks the appeal will wear off after the first month.
The African American museum’s opening has been met with overwhelming anticipation, as the institute has been more than 100 years in the making. It was conceived in 1915 at a meeting of black Union army veterans.
Barack Obama will ring in the opening ceremony of the museum on Saturday, and he gave a nod to it during his final address to the Congressional Black Caucus, in which he blasted Donald Trump for saying there’s never been a worse time to be a black person.
“I mean, he missed that whole civics lesson about slavery and Jim Crow, but we’ve got a museum for him to visit,” Obama said. “We will educate him.”
