Westmoreland museum boosts attendance 142%

Director Silvia Filippini-Fantoni has introduced interactive experiences tied to art.

By NATHAN FERRARO
TribLive

At a time when many museums are still struggling to reach pre-pandemic attendance numbers and fundraising is challenging, The Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg is seeing more visitor engagement than ever.

Silvia Filippini-Fantoni, the museum’s director and CEO, has ushered in a new era of marriage between art, technology and programming at The Westmoreland, contributing to its 142% increase in attendance in the past three years.

“I am not the traditional art museum director because of my background,” she said. “I’m not an art historian; I’m also not American, and now I’m a director of an American art museum.”

Filippini-Fantoni, 52, was born in Italy and has a background in history, international relations, education and, most importantly, museum technology.

Though she said most museum directors are typically curators or art historians, Filippini-Fantoni said her museum technology background and people-centric focus are what sets her apart.

“I think one of the main things that resonated when I was interviewing for this job is that I really was keen on trying to get more people to this museum,” she said.

Filippini-Fantoni is the fourth director of the museum since it opened in 1959. She moved to Greensburg, just blocks away from the museum, after previously working at U.S. museums in Newark, N.J., Raleigh, N.C., and Indianapolis, Ind. She’s also worked at museums in England and France.

One thing that struck her about her neighbors in Greensburg was the excitement with which they greeted her at the grocery store and in the community. She met locals who she said were enthusiastic about her work, despite the fact that some had never visited The Westmoreland.

“People considered this a great asset, but they didn’t engage with it,” Filippini-Fantoni said. She set about to change that.

‘The objective is to engage people with art’

The first step to bolstering the museum’s success was its attendance.

Filippini-Fantoni said a consultant advised The Westmoreland “to try to engage people that don’t necessarily see that art is for them, but they’re looking for something, especially after the pandemic, that is social and fun to do; where art is not the main ingredient, but it’s maybe the cherry on top of the cake.”

She said the museum was advised to design programs where art is “the outcome of the experience, but it’s not the main reason why they come.”

The Westmoreland, after boosting its programming, subsequently saw 10,000 additional attendees from fiscal years 2023 to 2024.

“We started kind of pushing the … programs, and we immediately saw a growth,” Filippini-Fantoni said. “So then I said, ‘OK, that’s not enough.’” The next goal for The Westmoreland was the implementation of interactive, playful experiences tied to art.

The first major experiment Filippini- Fantoni introduced was bringing back “Art in Bloom” to The Westmoreland in 2024, which drew in 1,500 people — a decent chunk of the museum’s total annual attendance.

Filippini-Fantoni said even that success was “not enough,” and her team went back to the drawing board for more innovative ideas. Upon noticing the correlation between seasonal attendance dips and the summer months, Fantoni knew a simple exhibition wouldn’t be enough to attract crowds away from pools and other outdoor plans during the summer.

The idea to create an art maze in the museum’s cantilever gallery came when Filippini-Fantoni met someone at an art conference who specialized in creating mazes for children’s museums.

“We said, ‘We have nothing to lose. It’s a way for us to get more families here. It’s a quiet time of the year, so even if it doesn’t work out, we don’t have a huge loss of visitors,’ ” she said.

The museum also made the move to charge visitors — not for attending the museum, which was and still is completely free — but for participating in the art maze.

Filippini-Fantoni said The Westmoreland saw the “busiest summer we ever had,” thanks to the maze. The museum was just awarded a $75,000 grant from an American art foundation for the maze, which the Art Bridges Foundation called a “groundbreaking interactive gallery centered on exploration and play.” This year, they hosted Putta- Palooza, an art-inspired mini golf course that represents what could best be described as the museum’s bread and butter: an interactive, family-oriented experience that encourages art education and exploration while providing both an attendance boost and an additional income stream for the institution.

“Our summer is a summer of fun and play, and I think it works; it works well for us,” she said. “And of course we alternate that with traditional exhibitions.”

The museum exceeded its fiscal year 2026 attendance goal by 10,000 attendees. Filippini-Fantoni said her team has been brainstorming ideas for next summer and is working on designing an inflatable art exhibit.

In addition to programming and art experiences, Filippini- Fantoni credits immersive experiences combining art, music and visuals with those strong visitor numbers. She said “Winter Tales,” a seasonal immersive exhibit, boosted winter attendance to unprecedented highs and “Steel Valley Visions,” a historical immersive exhibit based on the region’s steel mills, provided locals with a story that resonated.

“The plan for next year is to continue in this direction: More immersion, more playfulness, more programming, more partnerships,” Filippini- Fantoni said. “A museum here in Westmoreland County … needs to be more than an art museum. We have to also think about being a history museum, a science museum, a children’s museum.

“We have to be a bit, a little bit, of all of these things.”

Despite the many changes she and her team have made, Filippini-Fantoni said the traditional art museum experience is still preserved at The Westmoreland for those who seek it.

“We have to start developing experiences — not just (the) traditional exhibition, which we continue to do because we still have our traditional audience that comes and we don’t want to lose them — but we need to create something that’s fun and playful for people that might be intimidated by art, but kind of want to come and have a fun time with their families, and then, as a result of their experience, they look at great art.

“And they say, ‘Maybe it’s not as, you know, scary as I think.’”