Yesterday marked the last day of the 56th international Venice Biennale, which has reported a total visitor count of 500,875, with 2,899 average visitors per day. Numbers have been increasing slowly since 2009; this number is a 5.45% increase from 2013’s biennale, which logged 475,000 visitors to “The Encyclopedic Palace” at the Giardini and the Arsenale, while the biennale reported 440,000 visitors in 2011, representing an 18% boost from the previous year, according to the Venice Biennale’s website. (One thing to note about this year’s figures, however, is that while the biennale has started in June in previous years, this year’s edition opened its pavilions in May, allowing for an extra month’s worth of visitors.)
In comparison, dOCUMENTA 13, which last ran from June 9 through September 16 in Kassel, Germany, accrued a much higher total visitor count of 905,000, a 14% or 110,000 visitor increase from the previous edition held in 2007. (This is counting the extra 27,000 people who attended the dOCUMENTA 13 exhibition in Kabul, Afghanistan.)