HARRISBURG -- Mitch Swain and Ryan Freytag are not going down without a fight.

The two Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council officials, along with two of their counterparts from Philadelphia, came here yesterday to meet with Gov. Ed Rendell and some legislators in an effort to stop a proposal to extend the state sales tax to tickets for live arts and cultural performances as well as museums and zoos.

"We were shocked" last Friday night, said Mr. Swain, when the group learned that a $27.9 billion budget proposal for fiscal 2009-10 contained a surprise, last-minute addition -- removing the sales tax exemption for nonprofit and for-profit arts and cultural groups, including symphonies, ballets and other musical and dance groups, plus tourist attractions such as museums, zoos and historical sites.

"I was absolutely floored," said Julie Hawkins, vice president of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.

State budget negotiators, who removed the arts-related sales tax exemption Friday, hope to raise up to $120 million from the move. But Mr. Swain thinks that estimate is vastly overestimated.

He hasn't been told exactly how the new tax will work, or exactly what performances it will apply to, but he expects only $15 million a year to come from taxing nonprofit arts groups. His council represents 228 arts and cultural groups in the Pittsburgh area; Ms. Hawkins' group represents 400 nonprofit groups in Philadelphia.

She said there are about 5,000 such arts groups in the state, many of them very small, and they would suffer financially if they have to add 6 percent to their ticket prices. They try to keep their ticket prices low in order to be affordable for as many people as possible, she said.

The governor "has been very supportive of arts groups in the past. He clearly cares about the arts and we appreciate his stance," said Mr. Swain. Yesterday, Mr. Rendell said that "the issue is finding recurring revenues" to balance the budget, Mr. Swain said.

Mr. Rendell had given a six-member, House-Senate budget conference committee a long list of existing exemptions to the sales tax and urged them to choose one or more as a way to generate recurring revenue. It isn't certain who picked the tax on arts tickets.

The arts officials also met with Democratic Sens. Jay Costa of Forest Hills and Bob Mellow of Lackawanna, Republican Sens. Dominic Pileggi of Delaware County, Jane Orie of McCandless and Jake Corman of Centre and Rep. Mike Turzai, R-Bradford Woods.

It isn't known what changes may be made to the proposed budget before it is voted on -- probably in the next couple weeks -- by the conference committee and then by the full House and Senate. If legislators kill the arts tax, they will have to find $120 million from some other revenue source, which could merely get other groups upset.