After months of debate, the Corvette Museum‘s board looks like they might keep part of the Skydome sinkhole and make it into an attraction at the museum. While the sinkhole was a devastating loss at first resulting in swallowing up eight Corvettes, it has actually had an interesting effect on the Corvette Museum’s popularity – it has skyrocketed.
Board members were faced with a tough decision; do they repair the sinkhole and put the museum back to the way it was before the collapse, or do they leave some or all of the sinkhole open to the public? In a weird way, the sinkhole has now became part of the history of the Corvette Museum. It has clearly shown to be a draw for museum-goers as when comparing the period of March through the end of June for 2013 versus 2014, the number of visitors has jumped 59%, admissions income has risen 71%, membership is up 72%, and revenue is up 65%. When you combine the hype around the C7 Corvette release and the unfortunate drama caused by the sinkhole opening up, the numbers do not lie – the sinkhole is a hit!
With 14 board members in attendance at the meeting, it looks like the sinkhole will remain open while more information is gathered about the long term effects of keeping the sinkhole open. Keeping the sinkhole open and “riding the wave” of visitors wanting to see the sinkhole is a great idea because if for some reason interest in the sinkhole ever died out, they could easily fix the sinkhole and put the museum right back to normal. For now though, the people have spoken and they want to see the big hole in the ground that swallowed up eight Corvettes!