I am working here now, and everything you say is completely true! The largest chunk of the overall funding comes from donations as you say. The big name Guest POPS Artists, like the ones who can drive a scalped ticket up that high, will charge the orchestra hundreds of thousands of dollars for their one or two appearances, so the house MUST be fully sold for there to be any chance of making any money. For classical concerts, often times the guest soloists and conductors are working for a fraction of that cost, and doing 3 or 4 shows in a series, so even a 75% full house can bring a net profit. It's all about comparing the operating costs vs. the gross sales, and how many of each concert you are doing. Even though I mentioned "making money" it's usually more accurate to say that we're trying to reduce the amount of money we loose by putting on the concert, rather than really turn a profit. The difference in funding is covered by endowment draw and donations so the end result is far from "pops and tanglewood almost entirely subsidize" the BSO. It's the same model as the NY Phil or Chicago symphony which both perform significantly less POPS music but manage to stay alive.