Art Scott wrote:

>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.

I think the financial reason is probably the main one.  Here in the UK
funding of orchestras, of course, is done differently.

On looking more into subscriptions, some of the timings are odd; I am
reading the three volumes of Britten's letters (edited by Donald Mitchell)
and noted that some 1940s subscription concerts in New York were held
at, say, 2pm on Friday and repeated at 8pm on Saturday.

Who on earth went to the Friday ones?  I have a feeling the current
complaints about "no young people attend concerts" must have been as
nothing compared to the average age of those subscribers!

Alastair