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June 26, 2023
By Brian Hews
Ticket sales plummeted at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts in 2022-2023 hitting a record low of $3.4 million as Cerritos management altered its marketing plan, completely eliminating community newspapers and spending its entire print and digital budget with the L.A. Times and the O.C. Register.
The overall sales were obtained via a public records request.
The expense budget was pegged at $7.9 million, meaning the CCPA lost an eye-popping $4.5 million, a fact the Republican-controlled City Council knew when they proposed to raise ‘23-‘24 CCPA expenses by 21%, or over $1.6 million, for a total expense budget of $10.5 million.
Commenting to Los Cerritos Community News, Cerritos City Manager Art Gallucci, who has very little theater marketing experience wrote, “The selection of the Los Angeles Times and Orange County Register is based on the number of subscribers reached, geographic scope of the newspapers and the demographics of the covered areas.”
Only 13% of people in households in LCCN’s delivery area subscribe to the Los Angeles Times and Orange County Register, which was pre-pandemic, while LCCN is delivered to 98% of the homes in the same area. The numbers are similar in Downey and Norwalk, which also have community newspapers that were excluded from the CCPA marketing plan.
Hiding Per Show Revenue
In its answer to the records request, Cerritos’ management chose to not reveal what LCCN asked for – the per show tickets sold and corresponding revenue. The document sent by the city clerk only revealed total revenue and tickets sold for the year; per show tickets sold and revenue were redacted.
Document showing ticket total and dollar total redacted.
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The city clerk cited California Government Code Section 6254.15 as the reason for non-disclosure, “Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to require the disclosure of records that are any of the following: corporate financial records, corporate proprietary information including trade secrets, and information relating to siting within the state furnished to a government agency by a private company for the purpose of permitting the agency to work with the company in retaining, locating, or expanding a facility within California. The requested information may be released to you upon the City’s receipt from you, the consent of individual artists, of release of this specific information.”
According to one consulting firm who presented a plan for Irvine to open a new amphitheater at the Great Park, the information can be found on Pollstar magazine’s website with a pricey subscription.
One thing is certain, the document indicated 53 shows and 41,243 total tickets sold for the year, for an average of 792 ticket sold per show. The seating capacity of the CCPA is 1,700, so the Center was, on average, under half full for each performance.
Proving the withholding of information was a ruse by City Management, when LCCN asked the city of La Mirada for its sales at the La Mirada Theater for the Performing Arts, which had a record 2022-‘23 year, the city did not redact any information concerning ticket sales and revenue.
There are no plans to change the sales and operations of the CCPA for the 23-24 season; consequently, the city is looking at another multi-million dollar loss.
Emails into Cerritos management, Mayor Bruce Barrows and Mayor pro tem Naresh Solanki for comment went unanswered.
