The L.A. Festival: Thumbs Up or Down? : Donors: Financial backers give high marks to this year’s diverse program. Civic and business leaders praise efforts to involve local ethnic communities.

Most of the events at the Los Angeles Festival were free to the public--but the price of participation was steep for the corporations, civic groups and city government organizations that donated funds for the $5-million Pacific Rim arts celebration.

With few exceptions, those backers said it was worth it.

The Los Angeles Festival marked the first time the Japanese Business Assn. has funded a citywide arts festival; companies that are members of the organization donated more than $1 million. Contributors included Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Ohbayashi America Corp., American Honda, Sogo Shosha Group, Mitsui Fudosan, Nikkodo and Nissan. Masayuki Kohama, vice president of Hitachi Limited, said he believes his company’s participation in the arts event was a sound business move.

“My personal feeling is, I think this was a very unique occasion,” Kohama said. “Economically, the 21st Century will be the century of the Pacific Rim. Trade volume on the Pacific side already exceeds that of the East Coast.

“However, without any sort of cultural understanding of each other, this relationship is very fragile. The L.A. Festival gave the so-called field for that exchange. . . . It is a very, very valuable event for Japanese businesses.”

Donald Shellgren, a senior vice president at Transamerica Life Companies, one of the festival founders, said his company was also involved in the 1987 L.A. Festival. Though unwilling to estimate what the company gave this year in dollars and in-kind donations, Shellgren said he thought this year’s festival was “less esoteric” than 1987’s festival of European arts--and therefore a more valuable investment.

“With the earlier festivals, the rap was that they were all held at kind of downtown places, and the ticket prices were quite expensive,” Shellgren said. “And the dance companies were companies like Twyla Tharp’s (post-modern dance company)--very avant-garde. If you knew about things and had a lot of money, you could come. But (festival director) Peter Sellars’ approach to this one really did reach out, and encouraged people to attend events that were largely free. And not only to go to those events that kind of appealed to your own culture, but to kind of cross those cultural boundaries.”

Although not the focus of the Pacific culture festival, Los Angeles’ black community raised $50,000 for the festival--and fund-raiser Dr. Thomas Kilgore, pastor of the Second Baptist Church, called the money well-spent. “This festival leaves a much better taste in the minds and hearts of African-American people than we’ve had before, simply because there was involvement at several levels at the many venues around the city,” he said. “Various racial and ethnic backgrounds came to know the real worth of people other than themselves.”

David Lizzaraga, president and chief executive officer of TELACU, a Latino community development corporation, said the festival served its purpose for the Latino community because its artists got a chance to participate. “This is the first time that I can remember that anybody has included Latin America as part of the Pacific Rim,” he said. “I think we all would have liked to have better response as far as (audience) numbers were concerned, but we weren’t in a numbers game--we were into presenting a quality festival.”

Jerry Arca, public relations vice president at AT&T;, another festival founder, said that while the company considered the festival a “risky” event, it’s not the first time the company has sponsored an unusual arts project. He said that the corporation managed to maintain a high public profile during the festival by sponsoring single events--such as the opening-night performance of Japan’s “Legend of the Water Flame” and the Los Angeles Poverty Department performance troupe.

“I have some critiques that I have already given the festival staff--there needed to be a stronger marketing and promotional component to make sure people are aware of (the festival),” Arca said. “But overall, I think people got out of the Los Angeles Festival what they put into it.”

Stephen Meier, vice president of administration and community affairs for Times Mirror, a Los Angeles Festival founder and parent company of The Times, said it is too early for the company to evaluate the success of the festival: “We really haven’t had an opportunity to sit down and put our heads together on that subject. But personally, I though the performances were marvelous.”

Tressa Miller of Security Pacific Corp., first vice president in charge of the company’s cultural affairs department, said Security Pacific became a festival founder precisely because the festival focused on cultures new to the L.A. arts scene. “Maybe it was offbeat--or maybe it was just representative (of the community),” she said. “I know it was criticized for being in so many different locations, but I think that’s why they were able to reach so many people.”

A few in the entertainment industry gave to the festival; Raleigh Studios donated space for movie screenings and rehearsals, and 20th Century-Fox donated an undisclosed amount.

Fox chairman Barry Diller said he does not understand most of the entertainment industry’s unwillingness to support non-commercial art forms.

“This (entertainment) community is so much about returning an investment that not only does it not (get involved in the arts), it seems to run from it--I don’t know why that is, it seems loony to me,” Diller said. “I think corporate giving should have a relationship to the world in which you function. We give to . . . everything that relates to the entertainment community. How you could say that an ethnic festival is not in the spectrum of your business? I don’t get it.”