Alastair Scott (no relation) wrote:

>I find the US notion of "subscription series" peculiar, even pernicious;
>to me it would encourage mechanically signing up year after year and
>expecting to receive the same "product" in return.

Depends how the orchestra handles its subscription series.  Here in San
Francisco, SFSO subscribers have the option of exchanging their series
tickets for any other performance at no charge.  My tactic is to sign
up for the series that has the one performance that I *must* attend and
is likely to sell out quickly (this season, Argerich-Friere), then swap
however many series tickets I wish to for performances I'd prefer.  I'm
normally signed up for 2 series, 14 concerts.  After swaps, I typically
retain only 4 or 5 of the tickets I started with.

Our wonderful S.F.  Performances chamber/recital operation has similar
exhange privileges, though their series are organized by type (piano,
song, quartets, etc.) so there is usually less necessity for swapping.

Signing up for a series has the advantage to the patron of holding good
seats in one's preferred location, and assuring seats for "hot tickets".
For the Symphony, it has the very big advantage of giving them a large
and fairly predictable sum of money upfront which they can invest, one
hopes sensibly.

Art Scott
Livermore, Cal.