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Penny Arcadia - shows, expos, exhibitions, and museum.

Penny Arcadia – shows, expos, exhibitions, and museum.

As many of you know, we have been working towards the establishment of a permanent Penny Arcadia / International Arcade Museum physical museum for many years now. In the meantime, we will continue our occasional shows and exhibitions. Penny Arcadia is the part (and brand of) the International Arcade Museum that works on both temporary shows, expos, special exhibits, facilities, and possibly a permanent museum.

Penny Arcadia originally opened a permanent physical museum in the spring of 1990, and then operated as it until the mid-1990s when the permanent museum was closed (due to the death of collector Jon Gresham and financial demands) and replaced primarily with a series of special exhibitions as well as of special exhibits at tourist attractions.

In 2003, The International Arcade Museum took over Penny Arcadia, and continues to hold special shows to this day. Due to special security and liability reasons access to some of our events, such as our 2005 mega-show/expo, were primarily promoted via a variety of organizations to their members (which still brought in visitors from across the U.S, Europe, and even Perth, Australia!).

We are currently exploring doing another show in late 2010 in Los Angeles, as well as another large expo in 2011. For our 2010 show, we are considering asking our members to bring some of their own, loved machines. Additionally, we are currently considering doing a special classic arcade (1880s-present) non-profit fundraiser event in the Grand Rapids/Ada, Michigan area this spring, and would love to hear from any of our members in that area that could help (with machines and/or time) for such an event.

A second permanent museum is still a number of years off. A museum with a number of common videogames could be set up in almost any area of the country. A museum along the lines we are interested in is of a larger scale. To succeed, it needs to be located in a fairly populated area. That requirement is also a challenge, as land, buildings, and operating costs are higher in denser areas.

Currently, it costs us between $1.50 and $2.50 per square foot, per month to properly store and secure the collection. For this reason, we have sold off a number of common machines (ie: Donkey Kong), as it is cheaper to buy or borrow them for our events (or later for a permanent museum) as needed than it is to store and repair them year in and year out.

As such, while we are always looking for new machines, we are primarily looking for uncommon and special rarities not easily and normally found.

We estimate that a proper permanent museum either needs a significant endowment or needs to consistently raise, at a minimum, tens of thousands of dollars, monthly.

Many museums open, and just as many close, usually due to a lack of sustainability in fundraising, or due to the death or divorce of a founder. Just last month, we acquired another piece for our collection, a coin-operated Edison Kinetoscope, from the liquidation auction of yet another museum that had fallen on hard times—the Hollywood Entertainment Museum.

Admission tickets typically only cover a small portion of operating expenses for any museum. We are not interested in opening another "open daily" museum unless we believe it to be sustainable for the long term. Sustainability will likely require the support of the general collector community, city or state governments, and corporate sponsors.

It is because of the recognition of the scale and of the time horizon of this undertaking that we (unlike some others) have not asked for donations of regular machines in years past.

Successful non-profit museums, such as the Computer History Museum in San Jose, California, are rare. Successful for-profit museums, such as the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., are rarer.

The International Arcade Museum Library, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public benefit charity, is, in addition to establishing a definitive archive and reference library, working towards determining the viability of, and possibly establishing a permanent non-profit physical museum. [see separate post for more info]

Penny Arcadia supports this effort while continuing with its own events while the community's long term goals remain unmet.


Please visit the Penny Arcadia page:

http://www.arcade-museum.com/penny-arcadia/
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