The buzz surrounding conductor Jeffrey Kahane’s ascension to music director of the Colorado Symphony six years ago took the orchestra to record attendance heights.

But when that initial flurry of excitement faded, the symphony was not able sustain the momentum. Ticket sales started on a downward trend, one further aggravated by the recession.

But all that ended this season. The orchestra is not just making a financial comeback, it is jetting forward in its still-continuing 2010-11 season, setting sales records and attracting first-time attendees.

And it’s doing it without two of the tricks that usually give orchestras a boost in visibility and attendance — the appointment of a new music director, as in 2005-06, or the debut of a snazzy new performance venue.

Instead, to explain its standout success at the box office, symphony leaders point to more accessible programming, especially the introduction of its multimedia Inside the Score series, and an overhaul of its marketing.

“We know there is an interest in the music,” said James Palermo, the symphony’s president and chief executive. “Our ability to figure out how to reach the demographic is something that we’re really fine-tuning.”

But none of this means the symphony is out of the financial swamp. The company ran a $300,000 budget deficit in 2009-10, and Palermo said it is too soon to know how this fiscal year, which ends June 30, will turn out.

That said, almost any way one dissects the sales numbers, they add up to good news for the symphony:

• With more than a dozen concerts yet to go, total ticket sales revenues are already up 20 percent from 2009-10, climbing from $4.5 million to $5.4 million as of April 18.

• Bucking national trends, the symphony boosted the total number of seats sold through season subscriptions from 4,896 in 2009-10 to 8,487 this season — a jump of 73.3 percent.

• About 30 percent of the audiences for all of the symphony’s concerts are first-time attendees or patrons who are returning after an absence of three years or more.

How is the symphony doing it? A big part of the answer lies with the orchestra’s decision to reorganize its concert lineup.

“We see this incredibly difficult economic time as an opportunity to be slightly entrepreneurial,” Palermo said.

Friday evenings have been the toughest nights to sell tickets to traditional Masterworks concerts. So, this season, orchestra leaders converted seven of those Friday concert slots to its new Inside the Score series.

These informal, multimedia programs diverge from a straight concert format with the addition of light commentary and the frequent participation of dancers, actors and other collaborators.

Examples this year have included an exploration of tango, a breakdown of Dvorák’s “New World” Symphony and a CSI investigation of the ailments that killed Beethoven, complete with an actor portraying the famed composer.

The most recent Inside the Score concert on April 1 was devoted to a radio- style countdown of classical music’s top 10 most popular works. More than 1,600 people attended, including 1,000 who purchased their tickets through a Groupon promotion.

“It makes a better use of our orchestra and the space, and (it has) turned a new product into a whole new interest,” said Margaret Williams, vice president of marketing and communication. “We now have full halls, whereas it had been very small audiences in the past. We couldn’t sustain 21 Masterworks concerts on Friday nights.”

Broader star lineup

The symphony has also made significant changes to its pops lineup. That series had already become more diverse in recent seasons, but symphony leaders have found an even broader variety of artists.

This season’s performers have ranged from Broadway vocalist Idina Menzel and singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile to the Irish fiddling group Bowfire and the indie-rock band the Airborne Toxic Event.

“I think we’re curating that entertainment in a much tighter way and in a more strategic way than we probably did in the past,” Palermo said.

Along with the revamp of programming has come a total rethinking of the symphony’s marketing efforts. The orchestra has redone its 12-year-old website, making it more interactive and user-friendly, and purchased new ticketing software that allows better tracking of sales and donations.

Symphony leaders have also worked with Genesis Inc., a Denver design and marketing firm, to develop a new “brand identity” for the orchestra and give its website and promotional materials a revamped, updated look and feel.

Putting a bigger emphasis on direct marketing through both e-mail and conventional mail, the symphony is attempting to sell tickets sooner and avoid what Williams called “fire sales” — last- minute discounting.

“There’s basically nothing that we have not touched in terms of re-evaluating what the Colorado Symphony has done in its marketing programs,” she said. “Everything that we have in our arsenal, we have looked at, turned it over and flipped it upside down.”

The big question for the future is simple: Can the orchestra keep such sales trends going? That has proved difficult for not just orchestras but for arts organizations of all kinds that see such big jumps.

Palermo and Williams acknowledge that matching this year’s growth spurt again will likely be impossible, but they hope to keep the good times going.

Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com

Colorado Symphony ticket sales history

Total ticket sales

Season Revenues Seats



2005-06 $4,931,838 140,194

2006-07 $4,347,862 123,033

2007-08 $4,748,704 131,015

2008-09 $4,503,024 126,027

2009-10 $4,522,109 123,592

2010-11 $5,424,652 128,926

(as of April 18)

Season-ticket sales

Season Revenues Seats



2005-06 $1,982,743 7,096

2006-07 $1,667,816 5,482

2007-08 $1,758,445 5,480

2008-09 $1,910,437 4,945

2009-10 $1,490,846 4,896

2010-11 $2,179,281 8,487

Source: Colorado Symphony