Outdoor simulcast set for Gustavo Dudamel’s Disney Hall gala concert
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The festivities surrounding the Los Angeles arrival of conductor Gustavo Dudamel seem to grow larger every day.
The latest addition to the celebration is a planned outdoor simulcast of Dudamel’s Oct. 8 gala concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Set to take place at the Music Center Plaza, the live simulcast will feature eight plasma screens (and four more indoors) that will show the concert to an audience of 3,000.
Organizers at the Music Center said tickets to the simulcast will be given free through an online lottery system. People who wish to attend must fill out a reservation form at www.musiccenter.org. Sign-up will be open between 8 a.m. Thursday and 6 p.m. Oct. 5.
Only one reservation request per e-mail address is allowed, and each reservation is for a maximum of two people, including children.
A computer will randomly select entries and reservation confirmations will be sent out Oct. 6. The Music Center said 2,800 tickets will be distributed. The remaining 200 tickets are reserved for Music Center donors, board members and county and city officials.
Josephine Ramirez, vice president of programming and planning at the Music Center, said the idea for the e-mail lottery came from the need for crowd control of a simulcast. She also mentioned the L.A. Philharmonic’s ticket giveaway for Dudamel’s Oct. 3 Hollywood Bowl concert, during which hundreds of people were turned away from the box-office empty handed.
Most lottery winners will watch the concert on the Music Center Plaza, located between Grand and Hope, and 1st and Temple. Four of the 12 plasma screens will be inside the Grand Hall of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
The event is being organized by the Music Center with the L.A. Philharmonic. The concert will feature Dudamel conducting the orchestra in the world premiere of ‘City Noir’ by John Adams and Mahler’s First Symphony.
Much of the cost for putting on the simulcast -- estimated to be between $50,000 to $60,000 -- is being covered by two groups of donors: Helen and Peter Bing, and Thomas Safran & Associates.
Attendees will be able to bring their own pillows and blankets, but no chairs or strollers from the outside are permitted.
The concert kicks off at 7 p.m. Oct. 8. As Culture Monster previously reported, the concert is being taped for PBS and an eventual DVD release.
Outdoor simulcasts are becoming an increasingly popular event in the classical music world. In New York, the Metropolitan Opera regularly broadcasts its productions to screens in Lincoln Center and Times Square.
-- David Ng
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