More than 600,000 people visited the museum in its first three months. The Smithsonian required all visitors to have a ticket to access the museum. At first, the organization used pre-purchased timed-entry tickets, combined with a limited number of same-day tickets released every morning. The timed-entry tickets allowed visitors to enter at a specific time of day, with a shorter wait in line than would be expected if everyone showed up at the same time. Patron traffic proved so heavy that the NMAAHC began offering many fewer same-day tickets, and changed their release from early morning to early afternoon. As of mid-December 2016, the pre-purchased tickets were sold out through the end of March 2017.