R.S.V.Peeved : Patrons Can Get Table-Hopping-Mad if Their Seating Is Not Just-So at Charity Events

Donna Crean paid the top price--$5,000--for an “A” table at a recent charity fashion show.

But when she entered the ballroom, she found that the table was not at the end of the runway, as promised, but off to the side, with an obstructed view.

“I complained ,” said the good-natured philanthropist, who, with her husband--Fortune 500 businessman John Crean--regularly donates thousands of dollars to the Orange County charity scene. “A committee member told me I should have been able to see, but somebody moved my table!”

Musical tables, place-card switching, tantrums, power plays--all are part of the seating game at Orange County charity events.

Being up front not only guarantees the best view, it demonstrates financial commitment, brands you a major player. Some people will go to great lengths to get there.

“It’s the most ego-laden thing I’ve ever seen--where you are seated in a room,” said Catherine Thyen, a volunteer who has chaired dozens of benefits. “I know people who would not come to an event if they weren’t able to sit at the best tables.”

Often the tables closest to the action--the A tables--are priced at a premium to increase revenue for the charity.

The buyers of single tickets play social roulette: They can end up in the back of the room at a table full of strangers. The person who buys an entire table, on the other hand, is usually assured of a good location as well as the right to handpick and seat table mates.

There are those who don’t pay a premium yet still want to be up front. They are the ones who can turn a soiree on its ear.

Some of them arrive at an event early, plop down at a premium table and stick it out. “They don’t belong there, but they just sit and stay to get their way,” Thyen said.

Others sneak into a ballroom before an event and exchange the A-table place cards for their own--moving from “not-so-hot locales into a choice spot,” said an insider.

When this happened at an Angelitos de Oro benefit on behalf of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Orange County a few years ago, the victim was flabbergasted. Not only was she a major donor, she had worked long and hard on behalf of the organization.

One minute she had set out place cards on her designated table; the next minute, they were gone. She searched the ballroom, found the cards on another table, switched them back, sat down and enjoyed the show.

Two of the Bowers Museum’s major donors expected to be seated on the coveted Niebla Balcony at the facility’s open-air La Fiesta gala earlier this month. But when they arrived, the tables were full. They had no place to sit.

Appreciating the challenges inherent in seating 700 people, the good sports said nothing, found some friends in the courtyard and dined there.

“Gala seating is a . . . nightmare,” said Patricia House, the Bowers’ vice president of programs and development. “I know somebody is going to be unhappy, and it hurts. I want everybody to enjoy an event. I don’t want anybody to feel singled out that they were unworthy of the best table.”

At the La Fiesta event, House got one of the biggest shocks of her gala-planning life. “Somebody complained because his seat was too good, “ she said in disbelief.

“He was worried that his friends would be angry because his table was in such a great location. Actually, it was a circumstantial thing. The angle of his table made it appear to be better than it was.”

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Used to be, simply attending a gala year after year ensured a person of having a good seat. If they demonstrated an enthusiastic interest in a charity and were the first to send in their checks, the best tables were theirs.

Case in point: the Candlelight Concert, an annual benefit for the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Twenty-one years ago, when the center was only a gleam in the eye of a few arts’ visionaries, the concert was established to create excitement about the center dream.

“In those days, fund-raising was not as important as proving to people that they could have a great concert and attract first-class musicians,” said Thyen, chairwoman of this year’s event at The Pond of Anaheim.

When the center opened in 1986, it became necessary to use the event to help defray the center’s operating costs.

So seating opportunities at the Candlelight Concert, traditionally staged in a hotel ballroom, were totally revamped. The best seats--those in the middle of the room, at or near the stage--were offered at a premium.

This year’s primo tables are selling for a whopping $25,000.

“A person or corporation who gives that amount gets three tables,” Thyen said. “In the past, the top amount has been $10,000.”

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When he was director of the Orangewood Children’s Home, Orange County Supervisor William G. Steiner helped orchestrate the seating for the annual Orange Blossom Ball. “It was a delicate balancing act,” he said.

“It is assumed, at these events, that generous donors with a longstanding commitment to the charity get the best seats. Newcomers have the less desirable locations and work their way up.”

One gala, in particular, “gave me gray hair,” Steiner said. “We had gone through the painstaking process of positioning 700 guests at the ball. It’s a huge shell game where even a slight change can throw things into disarray.

“Well, we had promised our performer, Robert Goulet, a table for his wife and their guests. And when Vera Goulet saw her table, which we thought was in an adequate location, she threw a fit.

“At one point we thought she was so upset that Goulet might not perform and one of our supporters, William Lyon, would have to do a soft shoe tap dance to entertain everybody,” Steiner said, laughing.

“When we gave her a different table it affected every other table location in the entire ballroom,” he said.

These days, Mark Johnson, chairman-designate of the performing arts center, is seen up front at just about every arts gala. A philanthropist who puts his money where his black tie is, Johnson has become an A-table fixture.

“I enjoy it and appreciate it,” he said. “But the novelty wears off very quickly. People who stay active in the charity community don’t do it on a long-term basis for visibility or seating,” he noted.

“They do it for the genuinely altruistic motive that they have toward a certain organization.”