Free entry boosts attendance at Art Gallery of Alberta

Attendance at the Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA) is up 22 per cent after a cash injection from Edmonton city council helped provide more free admissions to the gallery.

Admissions for April, May, June and July 2017 were 24,789, compared with 20,308 for the same period last year, gallery figures show.

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Last December, city council voted to provide $250,000 to the art gallery of Alberta to fund its free-access plan.

In March, the gallery stopped charging admission for children under 18 and for all registered Alberta students, including post-secondary students.

Two months later, the gallery decided to expand its free evening admission from one evening a month to two nights a week.Now, admission is free every Tuesday and Wednesday between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Regular admission prices are $12.50 for adults and $8.50 for seniors and out-of-province post-secondary students, plus GST.

Catherine Crowston, the AGA's executive director and chief curator, says increasing the availability of free admission offers many benefits to the gallery.

"Our hope is the more people who come through the door, the more corollary revenues there are in terms of restaurant usage and the gallery shop and things like that," Crowston said.

She also hopes increased admission numbers will help convince the private sector to provide more financial support to the gallery.

The gallery has also added more free days to its calendar. Admission used to be free on Family Day and Canada Day. This year it was also free on National Aboriginal Day in June and on the Alberta Culture Days weekend at the end of September.

All that free admission means more bodies through the gallery's door, which has seen admission slump since the $88-million facility opened in 2010. That year, there were 137,000 visits.

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Last year, 41,354 people came to the gallery, and another 38,000 for private gatherings and other third-party events.

This year, the gallery is hoping to hits its target of 60,000 people coming to the gallery, while maintaining the same number of people at third-party events.

Trying to reach newcomers

Crowston said that not only are more people coming to the gallery, the audience is starting to look more diverse.

"We've also seen a lot more cultural diversity because one of the other things that is part of the money that was given to us by the city was not just about free admission but also helping to support other types of access and admissions," she said.

"So we've been doing a lot of work to create programming that brings in Edmonton newcomers."

Most of the people who visit the gallery 63 per cent are from Edmonton, she said. Another 23 per cent are from elsewhere in Alberta, with the rest from B.C., Ontario, the United States and other countries.

Worries about next summer

Crowston said the gallery wants to keep the free admission and the outreach programming, even if the city doesn't provide additional funding in the next budget.

But the closure of Sir Winston Churchill Square to big summer events like A Taste of Edmonton and the Street Performers' Festival for the next two years could have a negative impact on admission numbers, a situation she called "a challenge."

July is usually the gallery's busiest month, said Crowston, in part due toevents in the square, which is kitty-corner from the gallery.

"We've had a lot of conversations between ourselves, the Citadel [Theatre] and the Winspear [Centre] about the dramatic effect that's going to have potentially on our audience," she said.

"We are working together to try and create some form of coherent marketing and branding that will let people know that, despite the fact there's construction downtown, we're still open and available for people to come."

One bright spot is the opening next year of the brand new Royal Alberta Museum a block away.

"I think that with a lot of traffic coming downtown for that, that will also help bring people to the gallery," Crowston said.