Petra Ticket Sales Top 63,000

August 18, 2005 == MEDIA ADVISORY

The final numbers are in for the Petra: Lost City of Stone exhibition at
Calvin College, which concluded August 15.

Over the 19-week run of the exhibition a total of 63,808 tickets were sold for
the show. That includes tickets purchased just for the exhibition as well as
exhibition tickets purchased as part of special events such as the Taste of the
Mediterranean and Mezze and Music events, the Family Festival and the Petra
Grande Finale.

The final number just tops the 62,203 people who saw Petra during its 20-week
run at the Cincinnati Art Museum from September 14, 2004 to January 30, 2005.

Petra Steering Committee members say they are thrilled by the final number,
but even more thrilled by the response of people who saw the exhibition.

"By just the final attendance number we can consider Petra a marvelous
success," says June Hamersma, co-chair of the Petra Steering Committee and
director of the January Series at Calvin. "But more important than simply the
final number is the way the people who attended felt about the exhibition.
Our visitor surveys showed that people were overwhelmingly positive about the
experience. We said all along that Petra was Calvin's gift to the community.
To have that gift received and appreciated is very gratifying to all of us at
Calvin who worked so hard on the project."

For comments from Petra visitor surveys see
http://www.calvin.edu/petra/quotes.php

Calvin's Joel Zwart, the on-site curator for Petra, says that Cincinnati's
attendance figure was a solid benchmark for Calvin when the exhibition began.

"I'm pleased that we were able to match Cincinnati," says Zwart, director of
exhibitions for Calvin. "They are an established museum with a built-in
visitor base. We're a college who took a chance on hosting an exhibition. We
also are in a smaller market than Cincinnati and they had the advantage of
being open on Sundays, which is a big museum day. I'm proud that we were able
to draw the numbers we did and really pleased at the way Petra was received.
This exhibition was a big success."

Petra was pushed over the top by its final week in Grand Rapids which was a
busy one. In the last seven days of the exhibition a total of 7,953 tickets
were purchased for Petra: Lost City of Stone. That included a single-day
record 2,224 people who were on Calvin's campus on August 13 for the Petra
Grande Finale!

Among the 60,000-plus people who bought tickets to Petra over the four months
of the exhibition were some 12,000 folks whose entry was pre-paid. Students
and teachers from about 160 schools throughout Michigan took advantage of the
chance to take their students to Petra for free.

The offer began in mid-April when two donors who had seen and been wowed by
the exhibition pledged money to allow school children to see Petra for free. As
soon as the offer was announced the phones at the Prince Conference Center
started ringing.

Two months later a total of 5,500 public school students, 3,400 private school
students and 1,400 homeschool students had seen Petra for free - a total of
10,300 students. Those students were accompanied by almost 1,700 adults for a
total of 12,000 visitors!

"Both the donors were amazed by the Petra exhibition when they say (saw) it,"
says Henry DeVries, a vice president at Calvin and a member of the Petra
Steering Committee. "Their goal was to get as many students as possible through
the exhibition by the end of the school year. They felt very strongly that this
was an opportunity that should be denied to no student because of cost. So, for
us to report to them that over 10,000 students saw Petra because of their
generosity was a very pleasant task. They are thrilled that things worked out
the way they did."

Petra: Lost City of Stone at Calvin featured over 200 exceptional objects,
including stone sculptures and reliefs, ceramics, metalwork, architectural
elements, terracotta or ancient water pipes, artworks in various media and
other fascinating artifacts. All are on loan from collections in Jordan and
throughout Europe and the United States. Many were on display in the United
States for the first time.

Petra, 10 years in the planning, is now being packed up and readied for a trip
to Canada. It will be on display at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary from October
29, 2005 to February 20, 2006 and then will travel to Ottawa, Ontario, to the
Canadian Museum of Civilization for an April 10 to September 3, 2006 run.

After that its elements will be returned to their permanent homes in the U.S.
and Jordan.

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.

In Grand Rapids the exhibition was presented by Huntington Bank.

See www.calvin.edu/petra

-end-
Received on Wed Aug 17 23:59:20 2005