Posted by dp on July 04, 2003 at 17:17:57:
In Reply to: Re: "How to Kill Orchestras" follow-up posted by B.G. on July 04, 2003 at 14:32:41:
I was a subscriber to the San Jose Symphony for years prior to going to work for them. Two or three years after I left, and after I personally experienced more-than-subtle changes in how subscribers were regarded/treated, I became a willing part of the (at that time) 50% of subscribers who chose not to renew my subscriptions to every single subscription series offered. Frankly I decided their management sucked, and it no longer made sense to support management that (in retrospect) was busy mis-handling the finances and eventually raided the coffers. Oh well, I still love my home town, even though the powers that be in San Jose chose NOT to bail the orchestra out of its chronic money problems.
Many of the other pro orchestras in the States have experienced financial impact "from the economy tubing." To be more accurate (and truthful) many orchestras lost significant portions of their endowment because they'd made aggressive market investments. Some people would call that ill-fortune or poor timing, I personally think it is (at best) really poor financial mismanagement. Orchestras like Chicago which used to have income from their endowments "adequate" to cover their annual operating expenses wound up losing chunks of their bankrolls, because their account managers were seeking to grow the endowment by investment instead of simply covering operating expenses with the income
Now I know a LOT of retired people who this happened to, but thats not the point. An institution that enjoys special tax-exempt favor as a non-profit, yet puts its hugest asset at risk to (in effect) gain additional tax-favored income, DESERVES NO GOVERNMENT SUPPORT WHATSOEVER, they're in effect idiots at best and crooks who squandered their portion of the publics trust. A local politician doesn't even need two brain cells to see how stupid he'd look were he to bail a group like xyz orchestra out after they'd quandered their booty that way.
Barry is right, most of the discussion about this topic has come from arm-chair goofs who do NOT know what its like to squeeze an extra buck for the local performing arts, nor how to manage finances at a bit more than a balance-the-checkbook level. It's one thing to specualte on who else is responsible for something WE like going to shit. Its another thing entirely to either assume the responsibility for that state, or to step back and allow an ethically questionable business philosophy fail an otherwise valuable institution. The latter, my friends, is FAR and away harder than the former.