creating a cultural destination
Record numbers for Art Gallery Over the last financial year Bendigo Art Gallery has broken all attendance figures by attracting a record 306,219 people through its doors over the 2011/12 financial year to view eight exhibitions. These exhibitions have included two international exhibitions - The White Wedding Dress and Grace Kelly: Style Icon. This figure far surpasses the 158,934 people who visited the gallery in the 2008/09 financial year when the blockbuster Golden age of Couture exhibition was held. It’s a wonderful result and it demonstrates the important role that Bendigo Art Gallery is playing in attracting visitors to our city and providing cultural opportunities for our residents.
Grace Kelly (detail) 1954. Image courtesy of Philippe Halsman / Magnum Photos / Snapper Media.
Grace Kelly - a smash hit It is official – the Grace Kelly: Style Icon exhibition, with more than 152,700 people through the doors in just three months, has officially broken all previous attendance records at Bendigo Art Gallery. To put this number in perspective, the previous annual record for the Art Gallery was 158,943 people and this was largely due to the blockbuster Golden Age of Couture exhibition. The benefits from Grace Kelly have been enormous and while official figures are yet to be released, the City estimates the exhibition generated $15M in economic activity for our region. Income from the event was $3.3M and it cost $1.9M to stage with the City achieving a favourable financial result of around $1.3M. Grace Kelly captured the attention of people from across Australia and beyond and it has helped to put our beautiful city on the map. Bendigo is now regarded as a cultural
destination and people are already asking what the gallery is going to do next! Exhibitions like Grace Kelly take an enormous amount of effort and planning by a large number of people from across all of the City’s departments, including The Capital and the Tourism Units. Special mention must also go to the many volunteers who also played an integral role throughout the exhibition.
Number of visitors to Bendigo Art Gallery
it’s a fact...
2007/2008
111,263
2008/2009
158,934*
• The Bendigo Visitor Centre had 17,613 inbound phone calls between February and June 2012 (compared with 9,465 for the same period in 2011).
2009/2010
111,685
2010/2011
95,924
2011/2012
306,219**
• Over 38,300 people visited the Bendigo visitor Centre between March and June 2012.
8 | Greater Bendigo news | www.bendigo.vic.gov.au/gbnews
*Due to outstanding success of the blockbuster The Golden Age of Couture exhibition. **Due to outstanding success of The White Wedding Dress exhibition and Grace Kelly: Style Icon exhibitions.