Tate Modern to stay open until 9pm on weekends

Tate Modern is targeting young visitors with extended opening hours, the London gallery has announced.

From 26 September, Tate Modern is to stay open until 9pm every Friday and Saturday. The gallery currently closes at 6pm Monday to Sunday.

The move to extend opening hours at the weekend follows Tate Modern’s 25th birthday weekend in May, when more than 76,000 people came to the gallery in three days, with 70% being under 35 years old.

Tate Modern, like many other UK museums and galleries, has been recovering from the impact of the pandemic on visitor numbers. The gallery reached peak visitor numbers in 2019, when 6.1 million people came through its doors, according to figures from the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (Alva).

After dramatic drops in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic, visitor numbers started recovering, with 3.88 million visits in 2022 and 4.7 million in 2023. 

This then fell 3% to 4.6 million in 2024, making Tate Modern the UK’s fourth best attended visitor attraction after the British Museum (6.5 million), the Natural History Museum (6.3 million) and the Crown Estate, Windsor Great Park (5.7 million), according to Alva figures.

Tate Modern had 5.25 million visitors in its first year of opening in 2000, making it the third most popular tourist attraction in the UK after the British Museum (5.7 million) and the Millennium Dome (6.5 million).

Tate confirmed earlier this year that it had been working to reduce its overall staff costs by 7% and said that this “streamlining” had been achieved through voluntary means such as not replacing vacant roles and accepting voluntary exits.

A spokesperson for the gallery, which includes Tate Modern and Tate Britain in London as well as Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives, said that they couldn’t confirm how many roles had been affected, but reports in the national press that suggest as many as 40 roles have been deleted through this approach.

Tate’s statutory accounts for 2023/2024 show that the charity carried a deficit budget into the new financial year.

Tate said the alongside the extension of Tate Modern’s opening hours, the gallery’s regular Lates will continue to be held at the end of each month.

Tate Modern director Karin Hindsbo said: “Over the last decade, Tate Modern Lates have become a cornerstone of London’s nightlife. They have proven the huge demand for access to our galleries outside of regular hours, especially among young Londoners who want to make the most of their city's dynamic cultural scene.

“So I’m delighted that Tate Modern will soon be open late every Friday and Saturday evening, making the world’s most popular modern art museum even more accessible.”

Tate Modern is among the many UK attractions that benefit from large numbers of overseas visitors.

Tourism body Visit Britain estimated in June that inbound visits were just behind pre-Covid levels in 2024, with moderate growth compared with 2023. Spend remained below 2019 and 2023 levels in real terms.