LACMA deems Tut show extra special

For the first time, active members of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will have to pay for their tickets for a special exhibition.

In the past, museum members at the so-called active – that is, lowest – level have received two free tickets to all special exhibitions. But “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs,” at the museum June 16 through Nov. 15, apparently is a little more special than the rest.

With a top ticket price of $30, the Tut extravaganza will be the museum’s most expensive special exhibition to date. According to the museum, it’s the cost of bringing the treasures to Los Angeles that’s making 2005 a less than a golden age for some of the membership.

Presumably in honor of Tut, the museum’s website is giving entry-level members the title “Active/Pharaohs,” but being dubbed Pharaohs won’t let those people go, at least not for free.

Active members who have paid the 2005 fee of $75 may purchase up to four tickets at a discount, but they will receive no free admissions. To get two free tickets, a member must upgrade to “Patron”-level ($200), “Supporting”-level ($600) or “Community Partner”-level membership ($1,200).

Active members must pay $20.50 for each adult ticket on weekdays and weekends, as compared with the $25 and $30 nonmembers will be charged for weekday and weekend adult tickets, respectively.

Museum spokesman Domenic Morea points out that all the museum’s membership materials contain the phrase “benefits are subject to change,” albeit in tiny type.

He adds that members also received a Dec. 20 letter informing them that the “staggering” costs of bringing the exhibition to the museum would indeed subject their benefits to change this time around.

On the bright side, Morea adds that active members are entitled to the usual two free tickets to “Pioneering Modern Painting: Cezanne and Pissarro, 1865-1885,” which runs Oct. 20 through Jan. 16.

“The museum tried to make sure that there would be another show outside of Tut that would kind of fall under that agreement,” he says.