Even accounting for the Burnaby Museum Village’s closure this summer due to the pandemic, attendance was abysmally low this summer – more than three-quarters lower than the year prior.
Just over 6,300 people have attended the Burnaby Village Museum between July 16 and Sept. 6, according to a report to the city’s heritage commission. That’s just a fraction of the 27,000 who attended the museum during a similar time frame in 2019.
The culprit is likely obvious: limited capacity due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To mitigate the spread of the virus, the museum limited capacity to visitors and had all visitors enter through the main gate.
Perhaps the most significant change for families, however, was the lack of the C.W. Parker Carousel, a restored 1912 amusement ride. Officials cited the impact of enhanced cleaning on the hand-painted horses as the reasoning for the closure.
The museum is currently planning its fall season, including a draft list of presenters for a virtual speaker series. The first proposed speakers, on Sept. 29, are museum staff going over the Heritage Burnaby website.
Kamala Todd, Indigenous community planner and adjunct professor at SFU, is expected to present, on Oct. 1, on decolonizing heritage. The list goes on to include the Chinese community’s history at Deer Lake, prisons and reformatories in early Burnaby, streetcars and trams and Chinese-Canadian food.
The series, if it’s finalized as is, is anticipated to hold its final talk on Oct. 27, with the Christmas season expected to open on Nov. 21.
