O.C. Has Serious Problem With Important Issues

You can tell a lot about a community’s priorities by what special events people turn up for.

F’rinstance: Something like 2,000 people showed up recently to $50-a-head, black-tie-optional ribbon-cutting ceremonies for the spiffy new terminal at John Wayne Airport. That tells me that a good percentage of Orange County’s 2.5 million residents fly regularly and care deeply about the quality of their air travel. Either that or they just returned from summer vacation in Iowa and are still trying to locate their baggage.

But I’d suggest you can learn even more about people by what they ignore.

F’rinstance: When a group of prominent Latin American and Canadian writers were brought together at Cal State Fullerton recently for a major symposium on freedom of expression in their home countries, four--count ‘em, four--people showed up to hear them.

I think the location of the seminar can be ruled out as a factor because a similar program in San Juan Capistrano the day before barely attracted any more South County residents. And last week at Newport Harbor Art Museum, a meaty-sounding panel on the use of art as a tool for political awareness hardly drew flies--maybe 20 people were there.

In both cases, the people who put the programs together scratched their heads and went away mystified at why they didn’t have better turnouts.

But through close and careful analysis of the kinds of things that people do turn out for in Orange County, I believe we can find out just what went wrong.

Actually, I think the organizers of these events partially sabotaged themselves. First problem: These programs cost diddly at the door. The writers symposium was free. O.C. Fact: Anything worth its salt must cost money. So don’t expect folks to give up their valuable free time to do something that’s free . Heck, we can stay home for free, which, in fact, most of us did.

Tickets for the art panel were $7.50 to $10, which might help explain the marginally better turnout.

Besides the too-low admission prices, the panels shared another problem: Neither mentioned anything notable in the way of refreshments. Mistake.

You always need to know your target audience, and if there’s one thing one can say about Orange Countians, we love our refreshments.

South Coast Repertory managed to get about 420 people out last week for a $350-a-plate affair that offered a bounty of Soviet, Pacific and Mexican food as well as music and dance as entertainment. The theater company raked in almost $150,000 for the effort. Lesson: The more distractions, the merrier.

Third problem is that there were no dress codes at either the writers symposium on free speech or the Newport Harbor panel on art as politics.

Honestly, how can you expect people to pay attention to something if they know the people they’ll be mingling with might not be . . . well, you know . . . up to snuff?

The Orange County Performing Arts Center had no trouble getting 2,500 people to pay between $10 and $75 recently to attend a fashion show fund-raiser. Heck, that’s a better turnout than they got for most actual performances of their summer musical, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.” (Musta been all those frumpy togas that scared folks off.)

Still, the food, admission and couture factors were just planning-committee type oversights. I think if you look hard at the types of special events that have been most successful lately, you’ll find the biggest error of all:

Both these panels were promoted as hard-hitting, provocative, politically topical and-or culturally relevant sessions. In other words, Important.

Wrong.

Those are the kind of catch phrases you only use in these parts at about 3 a.m., when that Saturday night soiree has run a little too long and it’s time to clear out the freeloaders. Let ‘em know you’d like ‘em to gather for a round-robin discussion on the real threat of our national debt and--zip!--you’ll wonder where the fellows went.

Remember: If it’s audiences you’re looking for, Orange County is only too happy to oblige. But for goodness’ sake, if you want to deliver a message, stick to Western Union.