The Griffin Museum in Montreal is definitely closing its doors

The institution that displayed wax statues of celebrities has fallen victim to the epidemic.

After a year of closure due to the pandemic, Grévin Montreal was forced to make a difficult choice and announced the final closure of the museum starting today, September 16, 2021The organization explained in a press release.

drop in attendance

It’s a really economic decision, explains Kathleen Payet, the museum’s executive director. Our doors are closed for 50 weeks from 2020 until the end of February 2021. Since reopening at the end of February, attendance has not been up to our expectations.

Before the pandemic, the museum hosted about 150,000 people annually. Since its reopening, it has received only a third of its regular audience and employs about twenty people.

It was a shock for everyone to learn [la nouvelle], but it’s an understandable shockKathleen Payet.

The museum added a special thanks to the members of the Academy who helped build this museum by selecting personalities from here who marked our history. And finally, thanks to the personalities and artists who have shaped and continue to shape our world. They have been our inspiration and they continue to inspire.

Wax statues of Julie Snyder and Michael Drucker at the Griffin Museum in Montreal.

Photo: Radio Canada/Stéphane Leclerc

Since Monday, the museum has indicated on its website that it is closed Because of a major technical problem.

The Musée Grévin in Montreal opened in April 2013 on the top floor of the Eaton Center in downtown Montreal. It had more than a hundred wax figurines on it, including those of Riccardo Larvie, Julie Snyder, Dominique Michel, Guillen Tremblay, Jean Bellevue, Maurice Richard and Justin Trudeau.

What will happen to the wax statues?

The Musée Grévin in Montreal has begun dismantling its gallery, as it should have left the building by the end of October.

This morning, the team contacted the figures whose wax copies were on display in the museum to suggest that they restore their statue in order to give it a second life. Some of the wax sculptures will go to the Musée Grévin in Paris. The others will be donated to Quebec Museums. We are talking to some of them now.Kathleen Payet said.

With information from journalist Louis-Philippe Oume