Fighting Over -- The Best Seats In The House -- As The Seattle Symphony Gets Ready For Its New Home, Its Loyal Subscribers Are Really On The Move, Too

The great migration is about to begin.

We aren't talking about lemmings or caribou. It's the music lovers of the greater Seattle area: Seattle Symphony fans, who have loyally packed the Opera House ever since the days of the Seattle World's Fair, are migrating across town to the new and unfamiliar turf of Benaroya Hall.

When that hall opens Sept. 12 and becomes the new home for the symphony, concertgoers will experience a state-of-the-art facility that has many new features - including 500 fewer seats than the Opera House, a size change that should put Benaroya in line with most of the world's great concert halls. At the same time, the symphony is moving its main concert schedule from Mondays and Tuesdays to the weekend (Thursdays through Saturday or Sunday).

No wonder a key question - "Where are you going to sit?" - is heard frequently on the lips of symphony fans these days, in the concluding phases of ticket renewal. And not just symphony fans: Seating is, of course, a hot issue in the much larger contingency of the Seattle Mariners, whose fans may have to pay an extra $12,000 to $25,000 (on top of season-ticket prices) to ensure seating in 966 of the prime front-row seats for the new stadium.

At Benaroya Hall, there are no such "charter-seat licenses." Nor are there any automatic seat assignments - for board members, donors or critics - going into the new hall. This latter fact has caused some consternation among the symphony faithful. By and large, this is a group that isn't exactly enamored of change.

They want their seats. They want their same seats. They want them now.

And they may or may not be getting them. The seats might not even be there. Benaroya Hall has 2,500 seats to the Opera House's 3,000; the configuration is substantially different, with three balconies instead of the former two, and only 282 seats available in the first balcony level - which corresponds to the choice, 676-seat section the Opera House calls "Boxes and Loges."

It will surprise few people that those choice first-tier seats are already gone for many series, even though the orchestra will perform more repeats of each concert. Not all the returning subscribers (much less the new ones) have been able to choose their preferred location. The Founders Tier (the first balcony) is sold out on all nights for the main subscription series and all but one of the smaller packages, as well as three Pops series and the Symphony Specials.

Among those already seated in the Founders Tier Boxes for the main subscription series are symphony board president Dorothy Fluke (Box G), board chairman and Boeing executive Ron Woodard (Box F) and the project architects from Loschky, Marquardt & Nesholm (Box C, as well as some seats on the second tier).

Up on the second tier, you'll also find symphony executive director Deborah Card (Box A) and Jody Schwarz, wife of symphony music director Gerard Schwarz (Box B).

Bypassing the balcony

But not everybody wants to sit in the balcony levels. Sam and Althea Stroum, major donors and activists, are sitting in Row L, in the front one-third of the main floor. Some concertgoers have very specific main-floor wishes: Ed Brignall, a retired school counselor who subscribes not only to nearly all the various symphony series (since 1967) but also to the Seattle Rep, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Meany Theater's classical series, the Early Music Guild and other groups, likes to sit in the front row of the main floor, just below the concertmaster.

"I really like it there, because you're so close to the musicians and you don't have the distractions of the audience," Brignall explains. "You feel like you know the players. Ray Davis (principal cellist) always winks at me.

"I like the sound, and I've sat in the front row in San Francisco, Chicago, Carnegie and many other great halls. I think Benaroya Hall is going to be amazing."

Brignall's quest for Row 1 has been stymied by the fact that a stage extension will have to be employed at Benaroya whenever works for chorus and orchestra are performed.

Card says this is no miscalculation, but "intentional all along, because our acoustical consultant, Cyril Harris, was very specific about the size and volume of the stage. He gave us a number that could not be exceeded for acoustical reasons. When orchestras go to Carnegie Hall and perform these large works with chorus, such as the Verdi Requiem, they also put in a stage extension."

In Seattle, that means that rows 1 and 2 won't be sold on a subscription basis because the stage extension will cause their removal for some concerts. Brignall is getting subscription seats in Row 3, but he'll be able to swap those for Row 1 on non-choral nights.

And where are you going to sit?

A lot depends on how many "priority points" you may have amassed, in a scheme that rewards both loyalty (continuous subscription renewals) and generosity (donations). Not surprisingly, the No. 1 priority-point position is occupied by mega-donor Jack Benaroya (he and his wife, Becky, are sitting in the Founders Tier, in seats selected for them by Gerard Schwarz). The people with the highest number of points got first chance at seat selection in the subscription renewal process, which has been going on for a few months; around 95 percent of the old subscribers have renewed.

About $2.5 million of the $4.3 million goal in ticket sales has been reached; around 63 percent of the Thursday-night seats to the main "Masterpiece" series are gone, but only 30 percent of the Sunday-matinee seats are sold. Pops subscriptions hover near the half-full mark for Friday and Saturday performances; Sunday Pops is around 23 percent sold.

Kelly Tweeddale, director of marketing and communications, gets to field the complaints from patrons who don't like their seating choices.

"Sometimes people are angry," the soft-spoken Tweeddale says, "but there hasn't been anyone we haven't gotten seated and in the hall. People want to be heard; they want a voice. Sometimes people discover that where they sit is more important to them than which night they attend. This process is all new to us, too, and nothing is cast in stone. We have an open exchange policy, where if a conflict arises, a ticketholder can exchange for any other night."

Tweeddale is surprised by two trends: people want opening night (Thursday) far more than the weekend nights that were identified as top picks in marketing surveys. Moreover, the seats are selling from the top down; the best availability is in the most affordable seating.

The "cheap" seats

Which leads us to the question of where new subscribers should sit.

Seattle acoustician and sound engineer Glenn White, who has taken a close look at the hall, advises that the second and third tier seats, particularly along the sides (where sound reflection should be livelier), should be good.

Project acoustical consultant Cyril Harris says individual preferences will vary, but that the "seats in the uppermost tier at the back, the cheapest seats, may be acoustically among the best. That's true in all the concert halls. There's no way to beat the laws of physics."

Even Harris, for whom sound is of paramount importance, admits that our territorial issues in the concert-hall setting can be basically irrational.

"I usually like to sit in the first tier, because I like to look down and see the crowd, and watch the orchestra," he confesses.

"It's nothing to do with acoustics."