Driven to Distraction

An article in Sunday's Chicago Tribune talked about the impact of skyrocketing parking rates and 24-hour meters on the Windy City's cultural institutions. Basically, the article's thrust is that "getting folks to come out to your entertainment venue involves convincing them that they're going to enjoy themselves, but no one enjoys stressing out about parking, and that stress has become increasingly difficult to escape."

This is a problem everywhere in America, especially in cities like Minneapolis/St. Paul, where almost everyone seems to drive everywhere. Urban sprawl has also given rise to a class of arts aficionados who are used to parking for free in vast suburban lots, and consider city density to be a major inconvenience that makes them far less likely to spend an evening downtown. Those living in the urban core (and my bike-commuting, transit-riding self is definitely guilty of this) often dismiss these suburbanites and their gripes with a roll of the eyes and a rant about how spoiled Americans are, but the truth of the matter is that arts groups cannot afford to be even the least bit dismissive of anyone at a time when we should be endlessly grateful to every person who even considers coming through our doors.

Unfortunately, those same arts groups usually aren't in a position to do much about the problem. Some orchestras (ours included) offer discounted parking to subscribers, or run special shuttle buses from various suburban malls to concerts, and that's nice, but the vast majority of audience members are still going to drive themselves to the show, and when they're angry at having to pay $9, $12, or even $20 to park within an easy walk of the show they're attending, it's not the parking ramp attendant who gets vented at - it's us.

We do a fair amount of audience research for Inside the Classics, and whenever we ask about negative parts of the concert experience, we get loads of people who thought everything that went on inside the hall was great, but ohhhhhh, the parking situation! And the construction! And the traffic downtown! We used to get even more complaints than we do now, back when the ramp immediately across from Orchestra Hall was prominently labeled "Orchestra Hall Parking Ramp," leading many to assume that we owned it, or at least had some control over it. We didn't, and we don't, and the people who do were kind enough to change the name to the "11th & Marquette Ramp" at our request a while back.

Some orchestras (like the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra) address the issue by meeting the suburban audience where it lives, playing regular run-out concerts at small venues in first- and second-ring suburbs. It seems to work well for the SPCO, but some think it just encourages people's wrongheaded notions about cities, and a pragmatist would point out that moving a 33-piece chamber orchestra around the metro is a heck of a lot less expensive than moving a 95-piece symphony orchestra. As if to prove the point, the Minnesota Orchestra had to cancel a popular suburban concert series in Mahtomedi last year for lack of funding.

So what about it? How much do issues like the high cost of parking downtown affect your ticketbuying decisions? And what do you think those of us putting on performances in the downtown core ought to be doing about it?