DISCOUNT TICKET BOOTH TO MOVE TO HORTON PLAZA

With a $25,000 challenge grant from the Centre City Development Corp. (CCDC), the San Diego Theatre League signed a five-year, renewable contract Monday to place a booth selling discount performing arts tickets in Horton Plaza.

The CCDC award, which requires that an equal amount be raised, was announced last month. The grant is critical to the league’s final fund-raising push, said league Executive Director Alan Ziter.

With the CCDC award in hand, Ziter thinks that the Theatre League’s applications to six foundations in San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles counties will bring in the remaining $115,000 needed to cover the booth’s construction and start-up costs.

“One concern of some non-local foundations was that there wasn’t enough support from the city,” Ziter said. “We hope that this grant will encourage them (out-of-town foundations) that we have that support.”

Last year the league, a nonprofit trade association of local theater producers, opened a temporary ticket booth in the lobby of the Spreckels Theatre. The booth offers advance sales tickets at full-price and day-of-the-performance tickets at half price to plays, music concerts and dance performances.

In its first 12 months, the temporary booth returned more than $200,000 in sales to local theaters, Ziter said. He estimated that the permanent booth, to be located in front of the shopping center between the Robinson’s department store and Glendale Federal Savings, will return $400,000 a year to theaters. At that rate, Ziter says, the booth will be self-sustaining.