No Growth
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Because sales of lawn tickets can vary dramatically with the weather, pavilion tickets are considered a more accurate measure of growth, and during the summer of ’92 pavilion sales for CSO concerts averaged 2,309–about 70 percent of the 3,300 available seats. That percentage shrank to 64 percent in 1993, inched back to 72 percent by 1995, plunged again to 63 percent in 1996, and then moved up again to 68 percent last year. So far this season the CSO is averaging about 71 percent of pavilion capacity. Some might look at that curve and conclude that the CSO is bouncing back, but the fact is undeniable: for the last six summers one of the finest symphonies in the world has found more than a quarter and sometimes more than a third of its seats empty.
“Our customer base has been graying,” she admits, “and it’s a challenge we’re facing head-on.” Two years ago Zarin Mehta, executive director of Ravinia, began implementing changes that he hopes will bring in younger audiences. The festival now offers free lawn admission to college students with valid ID, and the lure seems to be working when the orchestra offers more popular classics: for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony earlier this month, 1,500 students took advantage of the deal. The festival also hired Leo Burnett to create a high-tech, 30-second TV spot that hypes Ravinia as “extreme entertainment”: two young trendies sit on lawn chairs watching a volcano erupt as a thundering herd of cattle flee the scene, all to the strains of the 1812 Overture. The ad is running on ten cable networks, including MTV, Nickelodeon, ESPN, CNN, and the Discovery Channel.
