The Box celebrates 'record-breaking' year
BBCA Devon museum and art gallery is celebrating a record-breaking year, surpassing its annual visitor target by 18%, up 44% from the previous year, bosses say.
The Box, owned by Plymouth City Council, said it had 356,000 visits in the 2025/2026 season, which beat its annual target of 300,000, following its Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy and Journeys with Mai exhibitions.
It said 2025 was a "phenomenal year" and reached 1.1 million visitors, after it opened its doors in September 2020.
CEO Victoria Pomery OBE said the figures were "extraordinary" and facility was "incredibly proud" of what had been achieved.
The Box said the Beryl Cook exhibition had welcomed 52,000 visitors with nine weeks of its 18-week run remaining.
It said 45% of those travelled from across the country, which it said demonstrated its "remarkable reach and its impact on Plymouth's visitor economy".
Pomery said it was "wonderful" to see people "turning up in their thousands" to celebrate the Plymouth-associated artist.
"Many of them are visiting The Box for the very first time, and we hope this is the beginning of a long relationship," she added.
Amanda Lumley, CEO of Destination Plymouth, said the Cook exhibition had given "a real boost to the hospitality, retail, and tourism economy" and was "making Plymouth a place people want to visit and return to".
The free admission venue added that the Journeys with Mai exhibition, telling the story of Mai, the first Pacific islander to visit Britain, featured Plympton artist Sir Joshua Reynolds' portrait of Mai and had welcomed about 25,000 visitors.
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