work on display accessible to the public. "We don't shy away from putting on difficult art, but we want people to feel comfortable while they engage with it", says McGregor. In late 2017 the museum put on one of its most successful exhibits ever, Pipilotti Rist's Sip My Ocean. "It set a benchmark that I don't know if we'll ever reach again", she recalled. Tickets to it sold out regularly over the nearly four months it was at the MCA; the museum extended its hours and offered special "unplugged" nights where selfies were forbidden to accommodate the crowds. McGregor credited the coincidence of an exhibit by an artist whose work celebrates the female body opening just as the #MeToo movement began trending worldwide. For 2019 the museum's visitation again exceeded a million; according to The Art Newspaper this made it the world's most-visited contemporary art museum. 2020–present: Pandemic and leadership changes Those increased attendance numbers did not last. The severe bushfires that began in summer 2019 had the effect of depressing tourism in New South Wales, and just as the fires were finally being extinguished the COVID-19 pandemic began. The Australian government limited all non-essential indoor gatherings to a hundred people, including staff; the MCA complied with the order by severely limiting attendance. By May all galleries and museums in the country were closed indefinitely. In the absence of foot traffic, McGregor estimated, 40 per cent of the museum's funding was lost instantly, which she said made "our much-lauded funding mix" problematic, as the MCA relies on government support for only a quarter of its budget, unlike other institutions for which it constitutes the majority of funding. The museum relied at first on its donor base, which McGregor said was very willing to let it use the money they had contributed with other purposes in mind for the more basic purpose of keeping the museum running. Because of that reliance on private funding, later the MCA was able to tap the government JobKeeper program to keep staff on the payroll, which helped it avoid some "truly horrible" scenarios such as the voluntary administration that Carriageworks, elsewhere in Sydney, had been forced into by then as the pandemic dried up its revenue stream, or laying off 30 per cent of its staff. The MCA established digital online programs to keep the public engaged. When Macgregor learned that many of the children