Cultivating All Tomorrow’s Culture Vultures

Kathy Holden, 28, moved to Los Angeles from Chicago for a job as a movie set dresser and soon realized that she had no social life outside of film networking events.

“I wasn’t going to the museum or going to plays--all of the things that I loved back home,” said Holden. “It’s hard to make the time to do that when I have to go to all these events to meet people and get ahead with my career.” Not to mention that industry parties are fun and a taste of the glam Hollywood lifestyle that Holden moved to L.A. in search of.

It wasn’t until a friend brought her to an event sponsored by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Muse program, dedicated to attracting younger membership, that Holden decided non-Hollywood parties were worth making time for. “It’s really cool--there are stars here too and great art. . . . I definitely plan to join Muse.”

Seeking to lure young professionals and creative types who would otherwise be celebrating the latest Web site launch or film opening, Los Angeles’ cultural institutions are starting young affiliates programs in which they throw their own parties--and make them as star-studded and rock ‘n’ roll as any other party out there.

That’s exactly what LACMA did for its recent Charles and Ray Eames design exhibit. The party featured rising glam-rock band Tsar and such attendees as actors Brad Rowe and Leelee Sobieski lounging on Herman Miller chairs with Jones sodas and Absolut vodka drinks in hand. After a very competitive game of musical chairs and a few hours spent chatting under the stars, the hip young crowd left carrying gift bags stuffed with Banana Republic eau de parfum and copies of Flaunt, a stylish fashion and design magazine that co-sponsored the event.

Such sponsors, according to Billy Fong, former director of Muse, make a big difference. “You’re giving [members] the whole lifestyle,” explained Fong, “We were picky with our sponsors and really focused on showing ourselves as the hipper, edgier side of the museum.”

With more than 5,000 members, LACMA’s Muse is one of the city’s most successful young affiliates programs--aimed at getting art-conscious, up-and-coming members of the coveted 25- to 45-year-old demographic to join the museum. Cultural institutions like LACMA want to establish a history with those who can, in later years, be counted on to support the museum with generous donations.

LACMA is not the only place to realize that a little extra is needed to bring in younger members--and that the strategy may pay off in years to come. Last summer, the Mark Taper Forum established Backstage, a social and educational program aimed at the same key age group. The Los Angeles Opera runs UFO (Urbanites for Opera), which invites “20- and 30-somethings” to “meet new friends. Enjoy cool, hip parties.” Even the Los Angeles Philharmonic, not known as a hotbed of youth culture, is starting Music Now!, which hopes to attract a new generation of members. And the Museum of Contemporary Art, comparatively a youth magnet, has run Contemporaries, an educational group with a strong social component, since 1986.

Though none of these programs is quite the size of Muse, they all offer enticing extras like parties and frills ranging from backstage tours to Tarot readings, to lure young professionals.

“These people are at the height of their busy-ness,” explains Paige Glickman, a lawyer in her mid-30s and the founder of Backstage. “It’s hard for them to take the extra time to search out the plays and come downtown.”

With that in mind, Backstage puts together packages that feature popular plays, like this season’s offerings of “Death of a Salesman,” “Glimmer, Glimmer, Shine” and “Swing.” Besides show tickets, group members have been invited to attend the opening party for “Glimmer,” an event usually reserved for cast members and VIPs. They also will convene for dinner at the Water Grill before watching “Swing” and can join a round-table discussion of “Death of a Salesman” with Frank Dwyer, the Taper’s associate artist.

“I had only been to the theater twice since 1991,” said Lindsay Chomyn, 32, of Los Angeles, a corporate communications specialist. “But I’ve gone four or five times since joining Backstage--the packages gave me inspiration to go, because I was always too busy to search for plays myself.”

The Los Angeles Opera’s UFO program offers deeply discounted tickets to four popular operas this year--”Aida,” “La Boheme,” “Don Pasquale,” and “Tosca.” In late September, after attending a performance of “Aida,” UFO members met in the garden of Traxx restaurant at Union Station. Quaffing wine and tasting mini-desserts provided by the restaurant, opera attendees like Augie Paculder, a political consultant, and Andy Ball, who does online business development, also lined up for palm and Tarot card readings. The pair, both in their early 30s and collaborating on a new Web site, say that UFO’s choice of operas, coupled with premium seating and free post-parties, caught their attention.

“It’s affordable,” Paculder said. “Besides, nobody here is being all high-falutin’ about the opera, so it makes it more enjoyable.”

Young affiliates’ program directors would be happy to hear that. It is precisely that sort of high-culture intimidation that these groups try to combat. “Sometime around high school and college, people just seem to get scared of [cultural institutions],” Fong said. “We’re suddenly perceived as boring and stuffy . . . people are intimidated at the thought of walking into an art gallery and buying a painting or going to the museum alone.”

It also can be difficult, in this city of beach-goers and movie mavens, to find like-minded friends. Consequently, performance centers reserve blocks of seats so young affiliate group members can sit together. Glickman, for one, realizes that, “it’s a little bit intimidating at intermission if you don’t know anyone. With the Backstage program, even if you don’t know anyone you can introduce yourself. . . . It’s not so sophisticated that anyone feels awkward.”

For Ilya Haykinson, 22, being in a group enticed him to come to the opera alone. “This is the second time I’ve gone by myself,” said Haykinson, director of product development at the Beverly Hills multimedia company Scour.net. “There’s some sense of a club, even if it’s sort of virtual. You feel like, here’s a bunch of people all interested in the same thing. . . . Going to the opera and finding myself surrounded by other young people attracted me.”

Lyn Nishima, another lone attendee, agreed: “It’s very different from the people you would think would go to the opera.”

At a Muse event in early October, film graphic designer Dan Winthrop, 39, of Los Angeles, also felt a greater sense of diversity than he expected. “This feels more like there’s people from all over, as opposed to the Bergamot [Station in Santa Monica] scene, for example. It doesn’t have that cliquish, tight feel--it seems like it’s outside of the art crowd.”

Indeed, instead of the high-art crowd often found at gallery openings, young affiliate programs often are dominated by attorneys, public relations people and mid-level studio types. Those who have the means to support the arts are rarely artists themselves--and these non-artists represent what museums and theaters hope will be their next wave of benefactors.

Thus, young professionals find themselves heavily courted, with much of the wooing taking place on familiar stomping grounds. Backstage held a membership drive event recently at McCormick & Schmick’s in Beverly Hills, a favorite after-work watering hole for the Westside white-collar crowd.

Potential members, recruited mainly through word of mouth, gathered in the clubby upstairs bar and were treated to oysters on the half-shell and mini potato latkes, as well as many things puffed and pastried. Absolut vodka drinks were, again, on the house--one young khaki-clad man after another bellied up to the bar and asked for, “Whatever’s free,” usually leaving behind a hefty tip.

“Sure, I’ll join,” said Steve Ballmer, a Los Angeles attorney in his late 20s. “It’s a good cause, and, hey, it’s a free party!”