Philharmonic Package Perk: Free Parking

Free parking, one of life’s small luxuries, will be available for the first time next season at the Orange County Performing Arts Center--but only for a select few.

The perk represents something of a coup for the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, which is using it to lure subscribers to its most expensive package, the 1997-98 Masterworks Series.

“People love free parking,” Philharmonic spokeswoman Sandy Robertson said. “The money we’re spending on it, so Masterworks subscribers don’t have to, is worth it--even if it turns out to be $25,000, which is about what we’ve budgeted. And even if we lost money on it, which we won’t, it would still be worth it.”

The Philharmonic Society is one of five regional organizations that present programs or perform at the center. Its patrons, along with those of the Pacific Symphony, Opera Pacific, the Pacific Chorale, the William Hall Master Chorale and the center itself, must pay $6 for parking at the venue. Eager to avoid the fee, many concert-goers instead walk over the Bristol Street footbridge from the South Coast Plaza lot. Roaming security guards once tried to discourage the practice but no longer seem to care.

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Philharmonic Executive Director Dean Corey negotiated the free-parking arrangement in March with Central Parking Systems, the company that operates the center parking structure for C.J. Segerstrom & Sons, which also owns South Coast Plaza.

Ticket holders for all nine concerts in the Philharmonic’s Masterworks Series, including concerts by pianist Andre Watts, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with pianist Richard Goode, will receive nine parking vouchers with their subscription. Instead of paying to park, they simply hand over a voucher to the attendant.

The center, meanwhile, was unable to arrange a similar incentive for season subscribers to its international dance series. Although critically acclaimed, the series has experienced declining attendance in recent years. (There are currently 5,200 dance subscribers, center spokesman Greg Patterson said.)

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When center officials attempted last month to negotiate a voucher system, the parking company turned them down, citing administrative costs.

“We’re not contracted or set up to provide the administration and extra employees that would be required by a voucher system,” said Wes Smith, CPS general manager for Orange County. “Unfortunately, my predecessor negotiated the situation with the Philharmonic Society prior to anyone’s knowledge here.”

Smith, who became general manager in May, added: “There’s no signed contract with the Philharmonic. But there are letters of communication about it back and forth. Because the Philharmonic has already marketed the idea, we’re going to live up to it. We’re only doing it for them this one time, nobody else.”

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If the center wanted to offer free parking, CPS, an international company based in Nashville, would have to renegotiate its contract with Segerstrom & Sons, Smith said. Ironically, the center’s biggest benefactor is developer Henry T. Segerstrom, who heads Segerstrom & Sons. (The center gets no revenue from parking fees.)

The $6 fee--up from $4 per car when the center opened in 1986--compares favorably with many arts centers, except local ones.

It costs $7 to park at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles; $8 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and $23 at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall in midtown Manhattan. It’s free at the nearby Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, however, and $4 at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

“We are city-owned,” Wayne Shilkret, executive director of the Cerritos Center, said Friday. “The city, if it wanted, could charge for parking. But there’s a conscious effort here to make concert-going user-friendly. Free parking is part of the service. The more charges you put on, the less friendly it is.”

Robertson noted that the Philharmonic expects to sell about 500 subscriptions to the Masterworks series, ranging in price from $122 to $427. Subscribers pay $350 or so on average, she said, bringing anticipated sales to about $175,000.

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Because the Masterworks package is “a big ticket,” Robertson added, the Philharmonic regards the vouchers as “more of a party gift” than a significant savings.

“People are taking advantage of the offer,” Corey noted. “We’ve added about 100 subscriptions through new sales and conversions [from smaller packages].”

Other regional organizations would like to offer free parking at the center, but the costs are prohibitive, either because of their size, their finances, or both.

Julie Bussell, executive director of the Pacific Chorale, the center’s second-smallest regional and the nation’s fifth-largest choral group, says the parking bonus is “a great idea.” But, Bussell added, “we can’t afford it. It’s more important to us, at this point, to fill the hall.”