San Antonio Symphony News and Archive

Don't destroy the product; fix the problem




By Mike Greenberg

from the San Antonio Express News 9/27/98



As the weeks have dragged on with no resolution of the San Antonio Symphony's fiscal crisis, I grow increasingly fearful that the orchestra will either fold or return to the stage eviscerated.

What's the problem? First, let me say what the problem isn't:

The problem is not a shortage of contributed income.

According to figures supplied by board chairman Charlie Lutz, gifts to the annual fund have grown steadily and strongly from $2.4 million in 1994 to $3.2 million in 1998 - the latter figure excludes $650,000 in extraordinary, "non-recurring" gifts to meet payroll at the end of last season.

The annual fund kept growing even after the last of the late Betty Maddux's annual $600,000 gifts.

Naturally, there's always room for more, and the symphony could probably do a better job of liberating money from rich people. But the symphony is doing pretty well in this category.

The problem is not high costs.

Officials of the Kronkosky Charitable Foundation and several large corporations, who have insisted the symphony cut costs and balance its budget now as a condition for a financial rescue package, have committed a catastrophic error in judgment.

The San Antonio Symphony is a very lean organization. It is beyond lean. It is anorexic.

Its roster of musicians last season, 76 players plus a librarian, was already at the bare minimum for a symphony orchestra of good repute. Its 39-week season was already at the bare minimum to attract musicians of talent.

An orchestra in a city with a very large music-school faculty might be able to maintain quality with a part-time orchestra, or by hiring temps to fill out a smaller full-time core ensemble as repertoire demands, but San Antonio is not in that situation.

The staff, too, is lean - too lean to do effective marketing or to beat more bushes for gifts. It costs money to make money.

The symphony's problem is ticket sales.

Had the symphony played to respectably filled houses last season - say, 85 percent or 90 percent of capacity - it would not be in trouble today. Though attendance has grown modestly, with especially gratifying gains among young people, it hasn't risen much above 50 percent of capacity, as near as I can tell.

The empty seats represent a lot of lost income, and a lot of lost opportunity to make a stronger case for corporate sponsorships and foundation gifts.

The symphony's five-year "financial restructuring plan," misguided though it be, contains one worthy idea, "to secure restricted grants covering the total compensation package of a marketing director" with a base salary of about $60,000 a year.

The salary should probably be considerably higher to attract the right person. The job has been vacant for many months.

The wisest course for the symphony's angels-in-waiting would be to loosen the strings of their largesse - make the first two annual installments of their debt-retirement gifts without demanding a balanced budget this season, or next.

The symphony needs to pour resources into marketing and into the maintenance and development of its product.

With strong marketing, it is reasonable to expect rising sales and gifts to yield a balanced budget in two years, but it is not reasonable to expect a balanced budget today.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the resurgence of Apple Computer. Apple did not pull back from the grave just by cutting costs and doing less and making do. No business thrives by that course.

It saved itself by investing in the product, seizing the imagination of consumers and creating buzz.

That's how it works.



Back to the Symphony Articles.