Downey Symphony concerts will be free starting in October

Downey Symphonic Society treasurer Tom Hutchinson, president Anthony Crespo and board member Mary Stevens with music director Sharon Lavery outside the Downey Theatre. Photo by Alex Dominguez

DOWNEY — Want to see the Downey Symphony perform? It will be free, come October.

The Downey Symphonic Society announced that beginning with the 2024-25 season, which begins in October, the symphony will do away with ticket fees in a bid to draw bigger crowds to each performance.

Anthony Crespo, president of the Downey Symphonic Society, said that the Society Board wanted to make the Symphony another activity “that our community can attend without really hitting their wallets too hard.”

“One of the top things in mind is making orchestral music more accessible, especially to the Downey community,” said Crespo. “We’ve noticed a trend across similar size orchestras or art sectors where moving towards a free model or a low-cost model has allowed community members and families to experience different kinds of art, and we wanted to address that accessibility issue, especially here in Downey.”

Crespo said that the Symphony has also struggled to get its audiences back after the pandemic, resulting in lower attendances over the past couple of concert seasons.

“What people sort of generalize about classical concerts or orchestra concerts is that the audiences are older, and so we obviously want those audience members back, but given the pandemic – sort of how careful people were about masking and social distancing – that was definitely a factor that maybe slowed down those people coming back,” said Crespo. “Even as those things are sort of more lax now, we’re still seeing not as large audience sizes as we used to.”

Crespo estimates that recent crowds have been as small as less than half of theatre house.

Downey’s professional symphony isn’t the first locally to make its performances free. La Mirada, Whittier, and Santa Monica all have symphonies that perform at no cost to attendees. By following their lead, the Downey Symphony is hoping to capture some of their same success.

“The La Mirada Symphony, they offer their concerts for free, and when I attended their concert in February, they had quite a large audience,” said Crespo. “There’s the Santa Monica Symphony that actually moved to a free model in 2020, 2021 and they’ve seen a large increase in their audience sizes.”

The Symphony will be putting on two concerts in its upcoming season, each performance costing an average of $30,000-$40,000 for just musicians alone. The symphony has struggled with funding in recent years, with the city even stepping in 2023 with a $17,500 subsidy to save that year’s annual “pops” performance during the summer concerts in the park series.

The symphony has also twice been selected as a recipient for Downey’s Community Based Organization grant program, receiving $10,000 in 2023 and $15,000 this year.

Though Crespo admitted that the revenue from ticket sales will be missed, he hopes the community will “rally around the Downey Symphony,” calling it an “important and cultural artistic medium that should be supported by the whole community.”

“We’re going to be launching a campaign soliciting donations, offering different types of sponsorships so that we can have anyone that donates have it really belong to them,” said Crespo. “Obviously, we’re going to miss that income that came from ticket sales, but honestly, we want to address the issue that we want more audience members here to watch the symphony.

“If someone happens to see us for the first time and is inclined to support our initiatives and just to see more of this, then we will welcome any kind of support, whether its monetary, or just attending concerts, or just talking about us.”

The logistics of how ticketing – or if there will be tickets at all - will operate are still being hashed out between the Symphonic Society and the Downey Theatre. Crespo said the priority is to make it “as seamless and easy as possible.”

Crespo called this “a new chapter for the symphony.”

“We aim to really center on being accessible to our community, the Downey community, and keeping the artform alive and offering this opportunity to as many people as possible,” said Crespo.