A special Topps exhibit helped push attendance at the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory to a record number of visitors in 2015. Museum officials say 314,149 visitors toured the facility, more than any single year in its history.
Contributing to the record attendance was the popular exhibit, Topps Pop Culture: Home Runs to Hollywood. The original exhibition featured a retrospective of Topps trading cards throughout the years, including sports, music, movies and television.
2015 also marked the 12th year of the annual appraisal fair and baseball memorabilia auction conducted by Hunt Auctions of Exton, PA.
In addition to being a working factory that manufactures the bats used by hundreds of professional baseball players, the Museum has a large amount of memorabilia and artifacts associated with the game’s history including game used bats from Hall of Famers. The bat Babe Ruth carved notches in for every home run he hit with it during his record-setting 60 home run season in 1927 is among the more popular attractions.
This marks the fifth year out of the last six years that LSMF set a record for attendance, and is just the second time it eclipsed 300,000 guests.
“We are excited to take such great momentum into 2016, which is our 20th Anniversary,” said Anne Jewell, Vice President and Executive Director of LSMF. “We truly appreciate that families, travelers and local residents choose to spend time with us after 20 years, and our team has upped our game in 2016 to provide another exceptional year of original and fun experie
nces for the public.”
The 2015 attendance beat the former record, set in 2013, of 303,037 guests, an increase of over 11,000 visitors. Total attendance at Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory since it opened stands at more than 4.3 million.
The Museum and Factory extended its summers hours for the third-straight season, and offered a special discounted admission rate after 6 p.m. That special, along with the $5 February promotion with Museum Row on Main, attracted thousands of additional guests.
LSMF has a Mobile Museum that traveled to winter fan fests for the Cincinnati Reds, Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox, as well as the Major League Baseball All-Star FanFest held in Cincinnati in July. The Mobile Museum also made stops at Miller Park (Milwaukee Brewers), U.S. Cellular Field (Chicago White Sox), Busch Stadium (St. Louis Cardinals) and Victory Field (Triple-A Indianapolis Indians) during the summer.
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