“The Colorado Symphony Orchestra will have to temporarily vacate Boettcher Concert Hall in June 2015 to make way for a season-long, $17 million renovation. The question is: Will it return? Not unless it can get a better deal from its landlord of 36 years,” writes Ray Mark Rinaldi in Monday’s (4/28) Denver Post. “Denver’s Arts & Venues department, which manages the theater, has made it clear that won’t happen. The agency counters that it is already operating Boettcher at a deficit.… ‘This isn’t about history or the hall. It’s about the fact that we just can no longer pay as much money as it costs to play in Boettcher Hall,’ said CSO executive director Jerry Kern. The CSO … pays the city $323,000 in rent and raises roughly $317,000 more for Denver through a 10 percent ‘seat tax’ added onto every ticket sold.… Boettcher costs about $1.18 million a year to operate…. The hall lost $362,000 in 2013.… Its three main fine arts tenants—the CSO, Opera Colorado and the Colorado Ballet … draw older, mostly white audiences in a city that … is increasingly Latino and young.… An affordable home [the CSO] can count on … will allow it to keep soaring artistically.”
Posted April 29, 2014
