Editorial: Let MTG be place all want to go

Hawke's Bay, Museum Theatre Gallery Hawke's Bay. Photo / Duncan Brown

Museums should be places of wonder.

They should be treasure troves where people, especially children, can go and soak up the history of the region and come out marvelling at the experience. I was very excited when Napier's new Museum Theatre Gallery (MTG) opened - the new building and location were perfect.

Sadly, it has become a pawn in the amalgamation debate as a result of some financial and planning missteps, as well as some exhibitions that left the paying public underwhelmed.

Although the Mayor of Napier, Bill Dalton, and his chief executive Wayne Jack have downplayed the extend of the MTG's lack of success, they did move to rectify the situation. They needed to as it became abundantly clear (as documented in an independent report) that the museum was not a great success. However, more is needed.

Be it in letters and texts to this paper or comments on our website (both of which are the most widely read local news sources in Hawke's Bay), we are constantly told that people want a museum that children will enjoy. Recently a prominent Bay personality told me that he took his son to the MTG and the young boy was bored within five minutes. It is comments like this and a Napier City Council survey that Mr Dalton should be listening to. The survey showed that a mere quarter of local residents were satisfied with the MTG.

While the council says it is working on improving the MTG's profile, its first response was that the perception in the survey was based on second-hand information. It does not matter if it was first, second or third-hand, it is still stopping people from going there.

Some urgency is required to find ways to make people want to go to the MTG. It is quite simple really.