The Box Plymouth Smashes Records as Landmark Year Delivers 356k Visits

7th April 2026

The Box Plymouth today announced that it has welcomed 356k visits in 2025/26 surpassing its annual target of 300k by more than 18% and cementing its place as one of the most visited cultural destinations in the Southwest of England. The figure is up 44% from the previous year and in the last five years since opening The Box Plymouth has amassed nearly 1.4 million visits.

The milestone comes as The Box marks the end of its fifth year since opening, a period in which it has transformed Plymouth's cultural landscape and firmly established the city as a destination for world-class exhibitions, community engagement, and public art.

The current season of exhibitions includes Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy and Journeys with Mai

Victoria Pomery OBE, CEO of The Box Plymouth, said: "These figures are extraordinary. They demonstrate that people in Plymouth and from right across the country are choosing to come here, to be curious, to be moved, and to be surprised.  It has been the most wonderful thing to see residents and visitors alike turning up in their thousands to celebrate Beryl Cook. Many of them are visiting The Box for the very first time, and we hope this is the beginning of a long relationship. We are incredibly proud of what this team, this city, and our audiences have achieved together."

The Box Plymouth's current programme, Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy, has already welcomed 52k visitors with nine weeks of its eighteen-week run remaining.

Significantly, 55% of Beryl Cook visitors hold Plymouth postcodes, while the remaining 45% have travelled from across the United Kingdom, demonstrating the exhibition's remarkable reach and its impact on Plymouth's visitor economy which sees over 4 million visitors annually spending over £346 million.

Amanda Lumley, CEO of Destination Plymouth, said: "The Beryl Cook exhibition drawing visitors from across the UK to Britain’s Ocean City is giving a real boost to the hospitality, retail, and tourism economy; The Box is a driver of Plymouth's reputation as a cultural destination; and the partnership between culture and tourism in making Plymouth a place people want to visit and return to."

Running alongside the Beryl Cook exhibition until 14 June 2026, Journeys with Mai has welcomed over 25k visitors to date. The exhibition, which tells the remarkable story of Mai the first Pacific Islander to visit Britain features Joshua Reynolds' extraordinary portrait of Mai, on loan from the National Portrait Gallery and Getty Museum.  Reynolds was born and brought up in Plympton and went on to establish the Royal Academy in London.

Alongside this extraordinary portrait, The Box Plymouth is presenting a new commission by Mohini Chandra and an immersive installation by Lisa Reihana.

The Box Plymouth and TR2 have marked another milestone in their partnership with the installation of a 5^th major public sculpture on the city's waterfront, funded by Plymouth Waterfront Partnership. The new work Hips & Chips has already generated significant excitement, with thousands of residents and visitors engaging with the sculptures and sharing images on social media, celebrating Plymouth's growing reputation for ambitious public art in some of the city's most iconic locations.

Behind the headline visitor numbers lies an equally remarkable story of community impact. Over the past year, The Box Plymouth's Engagement Programmes Team has reached 42k people through its learning and participation work including 5k through community and access programmes, 9k through the schools’ programme, and an exceptional 28k through its family’s programme.

These figures reflect The Box Plymouth's commitment not only to attracting visitors, but to embedding itself in the life of Plymouth's communities reaching those who might not otherwise access cultural experiences and building the next generation of curious, creative museum goers.

As the 2025/26-year closes, The Box Plymouth is already looking forward to what promises to be a most ambitious summer. This summer will see the opening of Gillian Ayres: A Life in Colour a major retrospective of one of Britain's greatest abstract painters, with her deep connections to the Southwest alongside Government Art Collection: Echoes of Us, a landmark display of nationally significant works exploring belonging, identity, memory, and connection, selected by young people.

The summer season will also celebrate the 170th anniversary of Arts University Plymouth with a dedicated exhibition in the Active Archives at The Box, and will present Where's Your Head At, continuing The Box Plymouth's commitment to nurturing creativity.

Professor Paul Fieldsend-Danks, Vice-Chancellor & Chief Executive at Arts University Plymouth, said: "Plymouth has been nurturing creative talent for 170 years. The Box has shown the world what this city is capable of in just five. Together, we are building something that goes far beyond exhibitions and degree shows, we are shaping a city that leads with creativity, that invests in its people, and that refuses to be anything other than ambitious. This partnership matters enormously to our students, to Plymouth's communities, and to the future of this city as a place where culture is not an afterthought but an identity."