How To Run A Concert Venue: Don’t Rely On Ticket Sales

St. Paul’s Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, which is the main home to the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the secondary concert site of the Minnesota Orchestra, has balanced its books for the second year running, after years of red ink. “The Ordway embarked on an austerity program and stepped up its fund-raising efforts for the 2002-’03 fiscal year, raising $3.6 million. The theater nearly matched that figure this year… as the Ordway seeks to decrease its dependence on box office revenues.”