So many people want to see the Vermeer exhibition now on at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam that the museum’s ticketing website has crashed and the museum has put a halt to ticket sales online until it can come up with a solution.
The exhibit includes 28 of the artist’s 37 known works, including one that the experts are still arguing about. Because of the difficulty in assembling works from many museums, most of them owning only one, the Rijksmuseum described it as the “first and last retrospective” for the artist. Never before, except possibly in Vermeer’s studio, have so many been in one place.
The original allotment of tickets sold out within two days of opening, and the Rijksmuseum has added additional hours and tickets, saying it was “working hard to ensure more people have the opportunity to see the exhibition.” That has included extending hours to 10 pm three days a week.
The exhibit, which closes on June 4, has also created a big flurry on ticket resale sites, although those sites have reported thousands of requests for only a few hundred tickets offered for resale. On Ebay, one pair of tickets sold at auction for €433 for tickets originally priced at €30.
