| In the interest of speed and timeliness, this story is fed directly from the Associated Press newswire and may contain spelling or grammatical errors. |
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) The Oakland Ballet has been forced to cancel this coming weekend's performances because of slow ticket sales.
Competing performances by Russia's Kirov Ballet in Berkeley and Smuin Ballet in San Francisco were affecting ticket sales for the weekend shows, said Tony Caparelli, the ballet's chief operating and financial officer. The Oakland company was projected to lose $50,000 at a time when finances are tight, he said.
``We didn't feel like the company was in a position to gamble its limited resources on a program competing with a lot of visiting companies,'' said Caparelli, who announced the cancellations last Friday.
The three weekend performances would have cost the ballet $94,000, Caparelli said.
The ballet's $1.7 million annual budget is funded half through ticket sales, about 60 percent of which come from 1,500 subscribers, and half through donations.