Triumph Should Be for All

The audience at the long-awaited Orange County Performing Arts Center’s first performance Sept. 29 will be composed mostly of the county’s elite, who will be paying from $250 to $2,000 for an opening night ticket.

It is the best fund-raising device the Center will ever have, as there can only be one opening night. It is hard to blame the Center for striking while the wallets are hot. But Center officials must be careful not to let opening night leave a lasting impression that the Center is for the affluent only.

For example, an ardent follower of the ballet who called for ticket information on the New York City Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre performances in coming months was told that tickets are available only in a subscription series. The same was told to a friend’s hairdresser who called to buy tickets to the New York City Opera’s “La Boheme.” Tickets for those performances must be bought in a block, which naturally involves considerably more money than a ticket to a single performance.

Single performance seats for the ballet and New York City Opera will only be available if the subscription series do not sell out. The bad news for ballet lovers who can’t afford to buy the series is that the subscriptions are selling out.

Buying tickets to single events in the future could be tough for the average resident too, because priority is given to the major donors--the 700 or so people who donated more than $10,000 to the Center. They will be given advance notice of all events and, therefore, priority in obtaining tickets. All of the above is standard practice in performing arts centers.

In addition to performances presented by the Center--such as the ballet and opera--local performing groups like the Pacific Symphony will offer performances at some very affordable ticket prices. But the Center should make a determined effort in the future to set aside tickets for each subscription event to be available on an individual-performance basis. That’s done by many theaters, including the Music Center in Los Angeles, which is making available some balcony seats at half price for the current Joffrey Ballet performances. Or the Center could add special lower-priced performances that would make theater-going available to people who otherwise couldn’t afford to attend.

Building a performing arts center for Orange County was a wonderful undertaking. Grand as it is, the Center cannot be a triumph for the community if its pricing policies make it impossible for large segments of the community to participate in the triumph.