Symphony May End in the Red : * Finances: San Diego group seeks to find $200,000 in the week before closing the books on the season. It would be its first deficit in four years.

For the first time in four years, the San Diego Symphony may end its fiscal year in the red. On Monday, just one week before the symphony closes its books on the 1990-1991 season, executive director Wesley Brustad(CQ) said he has to raise $200,000 to balance the budget.

“We’re very close. We could be within 3% of the orchestra’s $7.7-million budget. I haven’t given up hope at all,” Brustad said in an interview in his Copley Symphony Hall office. The orchestra has been in recess since the close of the summer pops season Sept. 7, and the new season is scheduled to begin Oct. 4, provided a new contract is signed with the orchestra musicians. Any income this week would be in the form of individual or corporate contributions.

Although Brustad declined to discuss specific aspects of the current contract negotiation, he did say that the sessions overall are going well.

“It’s not the old days. Everyone is respectful of everyone else’s positions. They are not acrimonious. I’m sure we’ll be announcing something next week.”

(After a series of financial crises in 1986, the San Diego Symphony’s 1986-87 season was canceled when management and musicians were unable to settle their differences. Since that rancorous dispute, two-year contracts were successfully negotiated in June, 1987, and in October, 1989.)

Brustad was willing, however, to enumerate the factors that he believes brought the local orchestra short of its budgeted goal this season: the recession, the Persian Gulf War and a disappointing summer pops season. Paid summer attendance slumped 14% at the new pops site on San Diego Bay from the 1990 season at Hospitality Point on Mission Bay. Brustad noted that paid attendance had registered a modest 7% gain during the 1990-91 winter subscription series. Ticket income from the twelve-week 1991 summer pops fell $191,000 below the budgeted level of $1,569,000.

“The summer season was a rough one. The first reason for the low attendance was the cold summer weather. It never let up. The one night it did let up, we were oversold.”

Brustad explained that pops patrons traditionally decide to attend on the spur of the moment, but, when the weather is cool, they stay away.

“In summer, 50% of our people over the years have bought their tickets at the last minute. It’s not unusual to have 1,000 plus come at the last minute.”

Getting pops patrons to find Embarcadero Marina Point South, the new pops site adjacent to the San Diego Convention Center, and persuading them to pay for parking, which had been free at Hospitality Point, were additional problems that discouraged summer attendance, Brustad said.

“We did a random survey of pops attendees from both the popular and classical programming. The survey told us that 77% loved the new site, but parking continued to be the big problem.”

Brustad, who acts as impresario for the summer season, conceded that people did not flock to the increased classical programming this summer. But he is not ready to abandon serious programming, such as the final summer concert that featured Beethoven’s First and Ninth symphonies.

“The numbers would bear out that classical programming was less popular. However, in the survey people indicated that they liked it and that we should keep the balance where it is.”

Classical flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal, for example, did not draw a crowd for his solo recital in August. But Brustad nevertheless intends to increase the amount of chamber music he will offer next summer.

“In the survey, our audiences told us they don’t like chamber music, but they weren’t the chamber music audience. We’ve just got to find that audience. Chamber music outside is amplified, so right off the bat, you’ve got to deal with that problem. But with the people we’d like to present, the (right audience) will suffer through and come anyway.”

Brustad stated that next year’s summer pops programming will look much like this year’s, although he plans an innovation to the usual movie music potpourri.

“We’ll use actual film clips from movies with their appropriate musical scores. We’ll show the clips overhead first, then play the full version of the score.”

Turning to the upcoming fall season, the executive director noted that subscriptions to the eight-concert Encore and Ovations series are running slightly ahead of last season. But the trend is away from the involved commitment of a complete subscription series. So, like the local theatre companies, the symphony is marketing a flexible six-ticket series that can be redeemed for available seats at any concerts.

“We did this two years ago, then backed away from it in hopes that traditional subscriptions would come back to the fore. But this flexible series is probably the easiest way to get someone to become a quasi subscriber, to make a commitment for more than one concert.