San Antonio Symphony News and Archive

Arrangement with ACE benefits symphony




By Kirk B. Feldmann

from the San Antonio Express News 9/30/98



As a participant in the reopening and operation of the Majestic Theater, I would like to provide some perspective and to correct some common misconceptions about Art Center Enterprises' relationship with the San Antonio Symphony.

ACE is a professional theater management company; its duties include booking all attractions at the Majestic and Empire theaters and providing venue-related services for the San Antonio Symphony.

In its role as custodians of these architectural treasures, ACE also takes care of maintenance and repairs on the theaters and the payment of all operating losses. ACE does not receive any operating subsidies, and the theaters have succeeded without imposing a tax burden on the community.

In 1988, both the Majestic Theater and the San Antonio Symphony were out of business. As part of an urban-renewal master plan to revitalize downtown, the City Council worked with community leaders, symphony leaders and property owners on several objectives:

• To entice citizens downtown by putting the Majestic Theater back into operation.
• To redevelop the surrounding office buildings into critically needed housing.
• To provide seed money for the renovation of the theater and to place the responsibility with the nonprofit Las Casas Foundation to raise the majority of the renovation funds.
• To ensure success and avoid the liability for substantial annual operating losses by leasing the theaters to ACE.
• To provide an appropriate venue in which the San Antonio Symphony could perform.

As the symphony struggles with financial distress, the notion that it was entitled to a "cost-free, utility-paid home" has been forwarded by some.

Since 1989, the symphony has had the use of Majestic - rent-free - for up to 100 days per season. ACE does not receive any theater rental income from the symphony, but it is paid for event-related expenses, including police and fire security, stagehands, ticketing, box-office staff, house managers and artists' contractual technical requirements. These are known as performance charges. The symphony paid for these expenses during its pre-Majestic operations, and it would pay these charges wherever they played.

At their highest, annual performance charges totaled $383,383. All patrons of the Majestic, including symphony patrons, are assessed a $1 preservation fee, which is added to the price of each ticket.

It has been suggested that the symphony was forced into or never agreed to these performance charges. To the contrary, ACE entered into negotiations with the symphony over the precise nature and amount of the performance charges in April 1988, 17 months before the reopening of the Majestic. All terms were agreed on by the summer of 1989. The parties have operated under those terms ever since.

It is also important to understand the benefits the symphony receives from the Majestic. First, the venue, both beautiful and with good acoustics, was made available to the symphony without any capital investment on its part.

Second, although ACE controls the revenue associated with the sale of the Majestic Starlight Suite Program, negotiations provided that - unlike any other tenant - ACE would share revenues from this program with the symphony. Revenue-sharing payments to the symphony exceed $176,000 annually.

In 1995, ACE forwarded a plan to the community to expand the Majestic Theater stage. In order to obtain the symphony's support, ACE coordinated an economic incentive package for the symphony totaling $230,000 a year in new revenues and expense savings, derived exclusively from the booking of longer-run Broadway shows.

In exchange, the symphony agreed to relocate from the Majestic for a few weeks, from time to time, in order to allow these presentations to occur. The symphony now realizes the financial benefits of this arrangement.

Since the reopening of the Majestic, we have worked to provide San Antonio with a professionally managed facility of which our community can be proud. We believe we have excelled. ACE, Las Casas Foundation and the city of San Antonio, have joined together to provide the San Antonio Symphony with numerous benefits. We hope the symphony resumes performing soon, as it enrichs our city's cultural life.

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Kirk B. Feldmann is vice president and chief operating officer of Arts Center Enterprises Inc.


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