Other Arts Groups See No Change in Sales

Economic recession has yet to hit other arts organizations in Orange County to the degree that the Performing Arts Center claims to have been hit, although there have been signs that some people are spending less on tickets.

“We definitely saw a pattern evolve after the Middle East crisis began,” said Erich Vollmer, executive director of the Orange County Philharmonic Society. “Tickets stopped being sold. Season subscriptions just stopped, trickled to nothing. We were doing very well up to that point.”

Hardest hit was a concert by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam in late September, as the war fever was building, Vollmer said. But since then both subscription and individual ticket sales have improved, and the Leningrad Philharmonic sold out in early November.

Ultimately, season subscription sales fell $52,000 short of a $1.1-million goal--”not a dramatic drop-off,” Vollmer said.

Fund raising, meanwhile, has not been affected, he said.

“We’re right on target on our individual contributors goal, and in fact may even exceed it by June 30. And we have been able to attract some significant new corporate support.”

At the Pacific Symphony, executive director Louis Spisto said, “If I didn’t read the paper I wouldn’t know we had a recession. Thus far, we have not been hit one bit.”

And although Performing Arts Center President Thomas R. Kendrick blamed box office woes there on the summer, which he called “a risk period” for all arts, Spisto said that attendance at the symphony’s five-concert summer series at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre was “phenomenal” and unaffected by the economy or events in the Middle East.

Spisto said subscriptions to the orchestra’s performance appear to be running ahead of last year. Single ticket sales are also up, he said, perhaps reflecting interest in the symphony’s new music director, Carl St. Clair.

Fund raising is running ahead, Spisto said, with only one corporate sponsor--a development company--not renewing its support.

At the Irvine Barclay Theatre, which opened on the UC Irvine campus in October, ticket sales have been quite slow, but director Douglas R. Rankin is hesitant to blame the recession, based on “our vast experience of six weeks on the stage.” It’s only recently, he said, that “more people are beginning to know we’re here.”

However, a particularly disastrous run of England’s Hull Truck Theatre Co. “did put a cautious note in the back of my mind,” Rankin said.

With only 750 seats to fill, and financial support from both the city and the university, the Barclay is under much less pressure than the Performing Arts Center. As a result, it has considerably more flexibility in programming for specialized audiences, offering a wider range of performers, including musical soloists, modern dance companies and community arts groups.