MIA applauds balanced budget, crowd numbers

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts is celebrating a balanced budget and its second highest annual attendance in the museum's history.

Some 645,000 visitors came through the doors in fiscal 2014, just short of the attendance record set the year before, President Kaywin Feldman told the organization's annual meeting Thursday.

She called it remarkable the MIA attracted the large crowds given it had only one blockbuster show on the calendar compared to two the prior year. "To almost reach that attendance without two blockbusters means that the community's just coming more often to enjoy the MIA," she said.

With MIA's $24 million budget balanced, Feldman said the institute is focusing on 2015, its centennial. There will be a series of major shows, and what she called weekly "birthday surprises" for the community all through the year.