Tickets for Arts Center

I sympathize with Ellen Appel, (L.A. Times’ Center Stage magazine, Sept. 21). I, too, wanted to attend the gala opening of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, but contented myself with having ordered season tickets to the Orange County Philharmonic last April.

What a disappointment to be advised on Oct. 3, six days before the first concert, that the tickets I ordered well before last May’s advertised deadlines for preferential seating were not reserved for me. I am among 1,200 subscribers who have been “bumped” from our seats by wealthy donors who were allowed to reserve seats up until the last week in September.

Are the arts in Orange County to be exclusively for the wealthy? We, the public, cannot condone such unfair practices. It is not ethical for the Philharmonic Society to advertise a preferred seating cutoff date of May 15 and then to disregard such a contract with its subscribers.

BARBARA SZPIRO

Fountain Valley