When Peter Shultz of Westminster opened his subscription-renewal package from the Colorado Symphony a couple of weeks ago, he was startled to discover that his seats had shot up 50 percent in price.
He was not alone. Jim Banman of Centennial found that his season tickets had increased from $333 for a seven- concert package to $402 — a 21 percent increase.
“What on earth is going on?” wrote Shultz in an e-mail.
The symphony has raised the cost of tickets for the 2010-11 season, but, more important, it has reduced the number of ticket-pricing levels from seven to five and significantly altered the boundaries of its seating areas in Boettcher Concert Hall.
That means that the seats of some longtime attendees have suddenly shifted into a higher pricing level, catapulting the cost of their tickets upward.
According to the orchestra, the modifications were overdue and meant to simplify the symphony’s arcane ticket-pricing and seating configuration. And make the hall look and feel fuller on slow nights.
“The symphony, and all arts organizations, need to be more businesslike and track their inventory more like Wal-Mart or a restaurant,” said Margaret Williams, vice president of marketing and communication. “We have to be responsible managers.”
Williams, part of a new symphony leadership team assembled since the arrival of president and chief executive James Palermo in March 2009, said the orchestra has received 30 to 50 complaints — a tiny fraction of its 5,600 subscribers.
“We’ve had an overwhelmingly positive response,” she said.
A key goal, she said, is to concentrate regular attendees in seating sections closest to the stage. Even with a respectable turnout of 1,500-1,700 people, Boettcher — one of the largest symphony halls in the country with 2,634 seats — can still seem sparsely filled.
“It can look very empty, if people are scattered around, and that can have a negative effect on the concert experience,” Williams said.
To encourage subscribers to move closer to the stage, those normally sitting farther away were offered pricing incentives to switch.
But some — such as Elma Beattie of Denver, who has had seats in the mezzanine behind the orchestra for seven seasons — don’t want to move and are upset at having to pay more.
“The acoustics are excellent,” she said, “and if they have a piano soloist, you can see their hands perfectly — better than any place.”
Williams said it was impossible to calculate an average ticket-price increase for 2010- 11 because of the complexity of the changes to the ticketing levels and past discounting.
But she called the increases “modest” overall, citing the example of a seven-concert Masterworks or classical-series subscription at the lowest price level. It increased from $98 this season to $126 in 2010-11. Williams said the change amounted to just $4 more per concert, but, overall, it is a 29 percent increase.
Also fueling the controversy around the changes was the way the symphony presented them. Rather than laying out the new pricing structure in renewal letters, the orchestra asked subscribers to call the box office for details.
“We were not going to just presume and plop someone in a new seat,” Williams said.
But when people called, they could not always get through, and messages were not immediately returned. Beattie said she called three times and spent a total of two hours on hold.
Williams conceded the box office was overwhelmed at times. In two weeks, the symphony sold as many subscriptions as it did in four weeks last year.
Shultz called the whole process “very confusing and not at all well-handled.” But after shifting his season tickets to Sunday afternoons, moving closer to the stage and saving money in the process, he pronounces himself satisfied with how everything came out.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
