It has financial problems. Commenters wildly disagree about what should be done. As with newspapers, "what should be done" conversations have a lot to do with getting more people interested in your product, though I gather that to some extent financial problems go beyond low attendance even if the attendance problem is real.
I go to 6-8 concerts per year usually, and my two cents is...well, just make the whole experience more accessible and more enjoyable. By accessible I don't mean more accessible music - I think they program plenty of that - I mean, less stuffy, less... I don't know, sometimes concertgoers are treated more like invaders than customers. They seemed to have removed all concessions from the upper floors, making that intermission drink or snack impossible for most people.
Their rush program is commendable, but in the age of the internets there's no need to make people stand in line a few hours before the performance to receive a ticket which lets you be seated in a random empty seat right before the show starts. It isn't really a pleasant experience. With attendance as low as it is, they can release actual tickets and let people just print them out a couple hours before performance (can let people line up, too, but should give assigned seats). Should be aggressive outreach to local organizations for concerts with low sales, releasing cheap ticket blocks to them.
Their summer program is a gateway for a lot of people, providing a less stuffy introduction to the orchestra, but the quantity and quality vary from year to year. This year especially it was quite awful, with just a few shows mostly loaded up with pops along with an appearance by Condi Rice. Once upon a time they did 20 or "serious" concerts in the summer, though sitting with a bottle of wine under the stars doesn't make them seem so serious.
The building's a problem, not living up to its promise of being a public space that people would want to visit despite being marketed that way. Anyone not an architect could have noticed that from the designs, but contemporary architects seem to be bad at designing such spaces. There should be a bar which is open nightly, or at least on performance nights, which people not even attending the concerts would want to patronize.
Anyway, random thoughts. Financial problems are deeper than attendance problems, but the attendance problems seem to be solvable to me.
