Arts Center Poll Finds Confusion : Survey: Orange County residents seem to like the hall but don’t understand how it is funded, pollster Mark Baldassare says. Education will now become a goal of the facility, officials say.

One problem facing the Orange County Performing Arts Center is that “people like it, but they don’t understand it,” according to Mark Baldassare, a private pollster from Irvine whose Center-commissioned survey of attitudes toward the hall was finally released Tuesday.

Basic conclusions from the survey--in which 500 randomly selected adult residents and 300 Center subscribers were interviewed--were released last fall. These were that awareness of the Center is high (86% of county residents knew about it) and positive (80% had favorable views of the facility), Baldassare repeated at a press conference here.

But the survey also found that there is considerable confusion about the Center’s finances. A third of the subscribers and nearly half of the general residents believe that the Center receives government funding, the survey found. Although the Center is tax-exempt, and though some of the groups it presents receive direct government funding, the $73.3-million facility--which was built entirely with private donations--does not.

A fourth of the subscribers and half of the residents surveyed also believe--incorrectly--that ticket sales cover all performance costs.

The survey also found that a surprising number of Center subscribers said they had never been approached for financial support. Center board members pledged Tuesday to act on these findings in order to broaden the facility’s base of support.

“Our big emphasis is going to be education,” said Kathryn Thompson, a South County developer and the Center’s vice chair for facilities. Adjusting the Center’s marketing campaign will be another priority, she said.

The survey, commissioned by the Center’s Performance Fund, cost less than $20,000, according to Baldassare.