Petra Tops 20,000 Visitors

May 23, 2005 == MEDIA ADVISORY

The Petra: Lost City of Stone exhibition at Calvin College has crossed the 20,000 visitor threshold.

The most comprehensive exhibition ever presented on the ancient Middle Eastern city of Petra, and its creators, the Nabataeans, is at Calvin from April 4 to August 15 for the third and final leg of its U.S. journey, featuring over 200 exceptional objects * many on display for the first time in North America.

This past weekend the 20,000th visitor entered the exhibition space at Calvin's Prince Conference Center. And by the time the weekend was done total attendance for the exhibition stood at 20,375.

Also, last week Calvin set attendance records for both a single day and for a week. On Friday, May 20 there were 1,310 visitors and for the week May 16-May 21 there were 4,692 visitors. Both were new high-water marks.

Finally, Calvin has now sold 34,693 total tickets to the exhibition and has completed seven of the 19 weeks of the exhibition's run.

Organized by the American Museum of Natural History and the Cincinnati Art Museum, and presented under the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan, Petra is the first major cultural collaboration between Jordan and the United States. Air transportation generously provided by Royal Jordanian.

A lead, local sponsor for Petra is Huntington Bank - West Michigan.

See www.calvin.edu/petra

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Received on Mon May 23 15:27:37 2005