By Dominique Tassell
Warwick Art Gallery presented its Quarterly Report at the 25 August Southern Downs Regional Council meeting, showing strong numbers.
Councillor Marco Gliori brought attention during the meeting to the numbers of visitors who went through the gallery in July of this year.
The Warwick Art Gallery had a total of 6457 visitors in July of this year, a huge increase in comparison to 2020’s total of 517 visitors.
While it was lower than 2019’s total of 8571 visitors, it is a good sign for the region’s recovery.
“It’s nice to see, isn’t it?”
Councillor Gliori stated that he “went in there a couple of times in the jumpers and jazz and the weeks before and after and people there were just really impressed with the hospitality of the volunteers”.
“So I just want to thank the volunteers, and the staff of course, and the director of Warwick Art Gallery for being on deck there.
“That’s a big number of people getting through there and they did really well managing that.”
The gallery has had fairly good numbers this year, with some months performing better than others as is to be expected. Numbers have remained mostly on par with previous years, with small variations and the obvious change between months where the gallery was closed last year.
January and February in 2020 saw higher numbers of visitors through the gallery than were recorded in 2019, while numbers this year were comparable to pre-pandemic numbers.
However, the month of June this year saw an increase of over 500 visitors compared to last year.
Councillor Sheryl Windle spoke up in the meeting to “encourage people out there to go and visit both art galleries”.
“They do an amazing job, and some of the exhibitions, well all of the exhibitions, that go through both of those art galleries are well worth having a look at and I think a lot of people are probably not aware of the calibre of our artists around this region and even visiting artists as well that exhibit in our art gallery.
“So I’d encourage everyone to at least go once a year even to visit those art galleries and see what is showing in there.”
