City Councillor says heritage attractions need 'Disney' effect.

Brent Gallant of Summerside urges province to find experts to make product more exciting

by MIKE ARNOLD - as published by THE GUARDIAN - Feb 12, 2008

SUMMERSIDE - A city councillor says it's time to change the way things are done if Island heritage and museum attractions are to appeal to greater numbers of visitors and residents alike.

Coun. Brent Gallant, the city's liaison to the Wyatt Heritage Properties, said the province needs to invest in expertise to create a new and more attractive image for heritage attractions and museums across the Island.

"We have to create a product that has its own gravitational pull," he said. "That bland experience that we've basically had for the past number of years here, it just doesn't work."

Gallant said the major gap in these attractions is the lack of a "Disney" effect.

"What Disney is, is an attraction," he said "It's an epic event. We have a myriad of small unattended displays. This province is full of them."

The councillor said many of these could be packaged, making it a bigger event, making it worthwhile and in turn attracting more people.

"I can do a fox museum and a potato museum and I could do all this cultural stuff in a one-stop shopping event," he said. "It makes it more exciting."

Gallant said there is a group which is keen on the way heritage is presented today.

"That's all well and good but the fact is if nobody else is seeing that then you're defeating the purpose," he said.

"You've got to put a little more Disney in it to make it more exciting to go. If you don't do that and you only rely on what we've always done then you can expect to get the results we've always gotten. We can't be expected to just throw something up here and this happen back then. It's just not enough excitement."

Gallant says he isn't promoting the use of Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck but rather using today's technology to enhance the presentation and experience of heritage on P.E.I.

He said he doesn't have the answers to this problem. He wants the province to invest in expertise and then back off from those experts and let them do their job.

"We need to be more exciting and inviting and if that takes away from some of the traditional ways we've done it then so be it," he said.

"It's basically more important to have the numbers come in and see the product and enjoy and experience the product then it is to keep it so pure and pristine that only those, that small little section of society, that lives in that world experiences it."

Gallant said it's going to take a wholesale change from what has been done for the past 50-plus years to increase numbers to these attractions.

summerside@theguardian.pe.ca