In May of 2018, Beyonce and Jay-Z filmed a video for their collaborative single “Apesh*t” in the Louvre, the world-famous museum in Paris. Some storied and gorgeous pieces of art were showcased in the video, and now the museum says that the clip had a significant impact on the amount of visitors they hosted last year. About 10.2 million people visited the Louvre in 2018, which was a 25-percent rise in visitors over the previous year, and which topped the previous record of 9.7 million visitors in 2012.
Museum director Jean-Luc Martinez said of the clip’s impact, “It’s clear that 2018 was a remarkable year for the international reputation of the Louvre. The Beyoncé video, like the opening of the Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi, ensured that the Louvre was talked about across the world, and one of the consequences of that is the spectacular rise in visitor numbers last year.”
Aside from the video, the Louvre also credits the increase in visitors to the return of international tourists, many of whom had stayed away from the city after the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks. Foreigners made up “almost three-quarters of visitors” to the museum in 2018. More than 50 percent of visitors to the Louvre last year were under 30 years old, and the museum is hoping to attract more younger visitors in 2019 by adding free nighttime visits on the first Saturday of the month.
The museum took advantage of the buzz generated by the video and started offering a guided tour of the 17 artworks that were featured in the “Apesh*t” video.
