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SPAC attendance


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A letter to contributors from the President of SPAC, reviewing the past season, says "Attendance was very strong this summer, with increases in the Philadelphia Orchestra and Freihofer Jazz Festival, a new record for sales receipts at the Saratoga Chamber Music Festival and most of the pre-performance talks were sold out.

I infer that NYCB attendance declined, or at best was flat.

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Hi Farrell Fan, nice to see your post!

I got the letter too.

I used to worry endlessly about the attendance figures at SPAC. Rumors would fly around: we won't have NYCB any more, we're getting cut back to two weeks, this is IT....these rumors were rampant for a few years after SPAC did lose NYC Opera. (Regarding your other post, NYCO didn't really find a large audience base here, but there was a small and extremely loyal one).

Were you coming to SPAC in the glory days of four weeks? The last such season was 1977 I believe--we moved to Saratoga in 1978 so we just missed it.

There haven't been too many rumors lately. I've been going to the ballet in the city more often for the last few years and I see lots of empty seats:mad: at the State Theater too.

I'd like nothing better than to see a body in every seat at every performance. But you know our SPAC theater is over 5,000 seats. It is twice the size of the State Theater. And you know the view from those partial vision seats is nothing to write home about. So on most nights and all matinees when the entire center is full I think we're doing all right. I'd like to be doing better, but it is OK.

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Hi yourself, rkoretzky, I was hoping you'd respond to this. Coincidentally, the first year Alice and I went to SPAC was 1978, the summer Baryshnikov joined the company. (It was just a coincidence.) But for years after that, we came just for the New York City Ballet Guild weekend. In a sense I'm glad the Guild dropped that trip. It finally led me realize I could stay a whole week. :) BW, I too love seeing NYCB at SPAC. Not only do the dancers look more relaxed, the audience has a better time.

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At least I THINK that's what the kids say when they mess up. We came to Saratoga at the END of summer 1978 (such terrible timing on our parts!) which was indeed the last 4 week season. By the summer of 1979 the season was only 3 weeks and I was working at SPAC as a volunteer--it took me over 20 years to get a paying job! LOL.

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