3 Out of 4 Unaware of L.A. Festival, Informal Survey Finds : Arts: Despite brochures, community meetings, seminars and press conferences, the $4.7-million event’s coordinators have their work cut out. The extravaganza runs Aug. 31-Sept. 17.

Less than a month before Los Angeles is to host one of the nation’s largest international arts festivals, public interest in the two-week-plus, $4.7-million event is virtually negligible, an informal survey by The Times indicates.

Only about one-fourth of 182 people interviewed had ever heard of the Los Angeles Festival which runs Aug. 31-Sept. 17, and just 7 respondents said they plan to attend any of the festival’s 230 programs featuring 1,400 international performing and visual artists. Among those interviewed last week at various sites around the Los Angeles area, only about 10 people knew anything specific about the festival, such as when and where it will be held or what types of programs will be offered.

In addition, only one respondent could identify Peter Sellars as the festival director.

A typical response to the survey, conducted randomly over four days at sites including the Santa Monica and Hermosa Beach piers, Westwood Village, MacArthur and Echo parks, the Beverly Center, Sherman Oaks Galleria, Long Beach Plaza and various downtown Los Angeles locations, was made by 21-year-old Lisa Oostwald, a clothing store manager: “Yeah, I’ve heard of it. I think I went there once. I put clay on kid’s faces--for free. When’s it gonna be?”

Barbara Whittaker, 45, a costumer and teacher in Silver Lake, said she was vaguely aware of the coming festival but knew very little about it. “I just know that it’s going to be,” Whittaker said, “but when I don’t know. But I think it’s soon.”

Jerry Coleman, 54, who works for a Santa Monica real estate management company, said he had heard of the festival but has no plans to attend any events. He was under the impression that the festival--which is being held at venues throughout the county--will be only in downtown Los Angeles.

Another Santa Monica resident, student Rachel Elliot, 19, also thought she had heard something about the festival. But she could not remember anything specific about it and has no plans to attend any performances.

The Times’ survey found that festival director Sellars is even less well-known. Despite considerable media coverage, only 11 of the 182 survey respondents identified Sellars as a living person in the arts--and only one knew he was the festival director. Others said he was “a dead British actor,” “a dead comedian,” “the ‘Pink Panther’ guy,” “Inspector Clouseau” or “Dr. Strangelove”--referring to the late better-known actor of the same name.

The Times survey seemed to confirm what many familiar with the festival have been whispering for the last few months: that despite the mailing of more than 100,000 ticket brochures, numerous community meetings in ethnic neighborhoods, two major press conferences and a number of educational seminars, the general public still doesn’t even know the festival is planned.

“Certainly the awareness level in the last six weeks to a month is crucial,” said Rudy Garza, the festival’s marketing, promotions and public relations director. “The awareness has been really low, and your (survey) results are probably accurate, but if you do it again a week before the festival, you would get different results.”

Although considerable advance coverage has been featured in publications including The Times and public radio stations such as KCRW, the festival has had “a problem” with advance publicity, Garza said, because of “some reluctance on the part of the media to do things too far in advance.”

Garza said he also has encountered “a lot of reluctance” for coverage from TV stations. The lack of press materials such as videos and professional photographs of performing groups has made advance coverage more difficult, he said.

“There probably hasn’t been enough media push on these things,” Garza said, “but there aren’t really a lot of outlets (interested in covering arts programming) . . . .”

Garza, who has held his post full-time since January and part-time since November, said that awareness of the festival was higher in some segments of Los Angeles’ population than in others.

“I think our presence in the ethnic communities is very strong, and certainly the art communities are well aware of what’s going on . . . but as far as the general public, I don’t know,” he said. “The awareness is low, but I can’t tell you why. There certainly has been information out there.”

Garza said that a general lack of awareness is a common problem for Los Angeles arts programmings and that he doubted awareness was any higher for the 1987 L.A. Festival. (Both the ’87 and the upcoming ’90 festivals grew out of the much-heralded 1984 Olympic Arts Festival.)

But, Garza said, getting the attention is even more difficult this year because of its Pacific theme and the fact that many of the performing artists are unknown.

“It’s not your big-name European troupes, it’s not the usual opera and ballet, it’s not the typical ‘legitimate’ arts programs,” Garza said. “People don’t recognize what the festival is because they don’t know what Javanese Royal Court Dance is. You can’t do enough pounding into the public’s mind with these images.”

“(Our job) is to demonstrate to people that (the unknown Pacific programs being presented) is legitimate culture. It’s every bit as much sophisticated and legitimate as European culture. It’s just different. “

Nevertheless, Garza is embarking on an effort to bring about “the massive awareness” needed for the festival’s success. He began the festival’s $100,000 ad campaign last weekend and will run ads through August in 15 mainstream and ethnic newspapers.

In addition, Garza said “heavy pushes” would also be made toward Los Angeles’ network affiliates, and public service announcements will be out next week to TV stations including Spanish-language KVEA and English-language stations KCAL and KCOP. Calendar interns Stephanie Gutmann and Phil West conducted the informal survey.