Walker Art Center to offer free admission to kids

The Walker Art Center starting Thursday evening will offer free admission to visitors 18 and under.

Walker Public Relations manager Ryan French said teens have long been an important part of the Walker audience, and he hopes the new policy will encourage even more young visitors.

"So this is really meant to target the teen audience that really is critical to the Walker," French said. "In fact its 14 percent of our overall audience or about 84,000 teens visit annually."

French said the museum wants to encourage young arts patrons for many reasons.

"The advantage for us is to expose much more of the public and in fact a critical area of the public, the teen audience, to art in general," he said. "That's fantastic for the Walker not only in the near term but the long term, and frankly it's fantastic for the whole arts community both locally and nationally."

The new policy launches at the Walker's annual Student Open House, which runs from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday. The program is funded by a three-year grant from Wells Fargo.