Last year the museum recorded 28,710 users of its services.
Users extend to not only physical visitors to the museum but those who communicate with the museum or wish to access archives but can not get there in person.
Museum director Philip Howe said it was pleasing to see numbers at an all time high.
"I take some pleasure from the fact that the total user number is roughly equivalent to the population of Timaru.
"Our [user record] document goes all the way back to 1989 when I first started working here and we had 6300 visitors through. Our biggest year previously was 2023 with 26,734.
"I always had this idea that I would like to try and reach a figure that was equivalent to the population of Timaru township.
"It’s not quite champagne cork popping time, but it’s getting there. We’re certainly seeing all that hard work by a lot of people over the last 10, 15 years starting to pay off."
He said it was also the highest number of students the museum has ever had through its education programme.
"It’s not just people coming to the museum, because we take the museum to them, and do field trips and all that sort of thing. With the current Ministry of Education contract we have also been allowed to go directly into early childhood centres.
"It’s great because it shows the really hard work last year from the museum education team is paying off."
Mr Howe said while the museum staff knew the year was going well they were delighted to have seen just how well it actually went.
"It wasn’t completely unexpected. We of course knew education numbers were up.
"As the monthly tally was added in, we’d see that we were equalling or in most cases bettering the three-year average previously. We thought ‘hey, this could be a big year’ and as it turns out, it has been.
"I think it also highlights the fact — and my colleagues at the Aigantighe [Art Gallery] would say the same thing — that arts, culture and heritage are actually important in a modern society."
There were a lot of different reasons for last year’s success, he said.
"Part of it could be due to a good cruise ship season last summer and various events such as Retro Rock and the Mars Rover thing we had one Sunday afternoon which drew over 400 people through.
"It’s just pleasing to know that there are a number of different activity strands that are bringing people in and we also perceive that there are more out-of-town visitors starting to come into Timaru.
"We’re just seeing more momentum, I guess that’s my key take from all of this, more momentum as we do more and people seeing the museum as a place to go and not just saying the museum is nice to visit once in a blue moon, but it’s actually a facility you can return to for different reasons."
He said museum staff were excited to build on last year.
"We’ll be looking at new programmes as well as what the future might hold with the new development but the timing of that is yet to be determined.
"As we were with the previous development, which would have brought a lot of new opportunities, we’ll make sure that those opportunities can be brought out, if not while we’re waiting, certainly in a new place.
"We’re looking at what has worked and endeavouring to build on that, whether it’s education, whether it’s public events, whether it’s the exhibition programme, and also building on social media engagement. That’s a whole big area in itself that I couldn’t have imagined that 15, 20 years ago.
"We are able to publish [and] communicate quite widely with people who may never set foot in the museum, but they’re engaging with our heritage and ultimately, that’s what we’re about."
The museum has already had a strong start to 2025 with the Nature collected exhibition and Sunsational challenge.
On Sunday from 10am the doors will be opened for visitors to get a special close-up look at a kiwi from the museum collections as well as a large kiwi egg.
