Getting people to interact with each other, as I have found out, is nearly impossible. The truth is, most people won't go and put themselves out there unless they have some incentive to. Events are great for that, but I'm afraid the buzz of excitement is only temporary. If most people would rather stay inside their own thread, that means only a few people are willing to go out of theirs, and those are the people that you are going to take notice of, and they're going to stand out. They're in the minority, but they're there. I'm sure there's a couple people that step out of their gallery once in a while and provide some feedback on other's work that you can think of.
To make a long story short, I just wanted to say that all because most people don't step out of their threads doesn't mean your section is inactive. It's just the natural way of things. Just be glad there are a couple people going around offering their word, because those are the members that are going to be great, and possibly be future mods.