14 ms·

I think the viscerality of this response is fascinating. Putting your phone in a case is a "prison", and you must check it every time you go to the toilet, and

• pavel_lishin 9y ago
  > Isn't that what we've been trying for the past 10 years? Clearly, it's not working. Have we? I've only been to one show in the past decade where a performer called someone out in the crowd for being a jerk with a camera. They wouldn't turn the flash off, so the artist asked them to stop, then they took another flashy picture, so the artist mocked them until they put the camera away for the rest of the show.
  • bdcravens 9y ago
    Post "no recording" or "no phone use during performance", have security remove them with no refund. After a few removals, most will keep it in their pocket.
    • davb 9y ago
      This has always been quite successful at cinemas (in Scotland, at least).
    • Phrodo_00 9y ago
      Every show I've been to that does this has successfully kept people from using their phones. I don't think checking in your phone is a very good solution from a practical standpoint, considering the downsides.
  • technofiend 9y ago
    It just depends on your definition of not being a jerk. I've been attending concerts since 1980mumble. Trust me, it's a big difference having absolutely zero devices in the air versus a sea of bright screens and waving arms obscuring everyone's view. That might be the norm for some people but to me everyone's being inconsiderate. And really to what end? Those tinny, wobbly videos will never garner more than a few random views on youtube and quickly be forgotten. I'm not in the "lock away phones" camp because they're an essential part of everyday life now. But I'm saddened by the social norm of them being in the air obscuring views now. Harumph.
  • jpwgarrison 9y ago
    I saw Lou Reed do this in 2003. It might have even been about cameras at that point and the issue was the flash, not audience experience. But he was not. Having. It. Stopped playing both times and really was about to walk off. It seemed a little too much at the time. But now I get it, and I feel a little bad that the current generation, at least the phone addicted ones, are never going to experience the level of emotion you get with fuller engagement. This is even more acutely real in the theater and it will probably wither in the current... attention economy.
• davb 9y ago
  I didn’t say that I must check my phone every time I go to the toilet. Only that being able to check my phone (for example, to check if I have any messages from people I care for at home) is a useful thing. And I never said that I was worried about terrorism. Only that having ready access to my phone in any emergency situation (again, I pointed out it would be more likely a fire alarm than a terrorists) is helpful. I don’t think concert venues do anything to enforce any sort of phone etiquette. I dislike that they’ve went for such an inconvenient option when there are softer, policy based alternatives in between doing nothing and locking up phones. Cinemas manage to enforce phone etiquette with much fewer staff per guest. Of course it’s common to see someone light up their row by checking their phone, but if it’s persistent (like the drunken heckler), cinema staff would eject them.
  • foolfoolz 9y ago
    i think the whole point is not being able to check your phone adds to the human experience
    • kakarot 9y ago
      What is the "human experience"?
      • deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      • Jach 9y ago
        For some people going an hour without checking their phone is like going into the hyperbolic time chamber for 10 seconds.
      • __s 9y ago
        In this context, the collective experience of the concert, engaging with it as your immediate world, cutting off the outside as would a cult, this is the cult of music, let it consume you as you consume it
    • CUViper 9y ago
• komali2 9y ago
  It worked at a Nine Inch Nails concert. I saw a couple people get escorted out for refusing to put their phones away, and that pretty much sent the message that they were not fucking around about it.
  • leviathant 9y ago
    If you don't mind my asking, which Nine Inch Nails concert?
    • komali2 9y ago
      It was in San Jose last year sometime, don't remember the details, sorry :/
      • toomuchtodo 9y ago
        I appreciate the lengths Trent Reznor is willing to go in order for his fans to enjoy his peformances.
        • stryk 9y ago
          I was lucky enough to win tickets to a NIN concert from a radio station call-in in the late 1990's or early 2000's (it was around the time the "God is dead and no one cares" song was all the rage). These tickets included access to the soundcheck. I went and saw Trent Reznor with a walkie-talkie going seat-to-seat-to-seat in the venue (and this was a 6k+ seat venue, not counting standing-only areas which he visited as well). At each seat he would have his audio techs play ~15 seconds of a test track (i think it was the Dolby sound samples) and then radio in and have his crew adjust whatever sounded off to him then immediately move on to the next seat. Quite some time later I saw Bono from U2 getting some press for doing the same thing at his shows and always wondered if he learned that from Nine Inch Nails. That show was fucking bonkers too, NIN had a really cool light/laser show going on during the show.
          • aembleton 9y ago
• rconti 9y ago
  Acting like adults is working just fine, unless you get irrationally annoyed at everything that doesn't go 100% the way you want it to. I went to a movie a few weeks ago where a woman actually took a call and wouldn't shut up for 30-40 seconds while others heckled her. That's the worst incident I can remember in the past decade or so. It doesn't annoy me if someone wants to video a concert on their phone. That's their choice to have a crappy experience.
  • bootlooped 9y ago
    Having 5% of the audience holding their phones up as high as they can to video tape the concert at any given time makes it harder for everybody to see. Then it's my crappy experience.
• Pyxl101 9y ago
  Taking your phone out at a concern is not misbehaving. It's fine and accepted. What OP is proposing is to make phones prohibited at a concert. Then it will be misbehaving, and you can eject people who are breaking the rule. I think this would be a fine idea.
  • PuffinBlue 9y ago
    > Taking your phone out at a concern is not misbehaving. It's fine and accepted. No. No it isn't. It's selfish and shows an egregious lack of courtesy to other attendees/the performer. The fact that most people do it just reveals most people are arseholes, not that it's 'fine and accepted'.
• stuffedBelly 9y ago
  I recently attended a Joey Alexander concert at SFJazz. Aside from a clear "no photograph" policy, there are also attendants watching people and reminding them if they took their phones out. It's working but definitely didn't cover all high-profile concerts like the ones featuring Jack White.
• frogpelt 9y ago
  There are a couple of cool apps on phones called "Telephone" and "Messages" and you can call or text people in an emergency situation. I'm pretty sure those are the apps one would use during a terrorist attack. But I've never been involved in one, so I could be wrong.
  • tomcooks 9y ago
    When a whole concert tries to call at the same time it's usually impossible to call because of saturated lines (t least in eu)
    • WillReplyfFood 9y ago
      Such events usually are used to trigger pre-emptive police and emergency services, so even reaching noone- is quite alarming.
• phaus 9y ago
  >you're concerned about a terrorist attack -- enough to want your phone, but not enough to stay home, as if your apps could somehow save you. It should be pretty obvious that a terrorist attack is simply one example of many possible emergencies. There are plenty of things that could happen where having instant access to a phone could save someone's life.
  • PuffinBlue 9y ago
    What sort of emergencies are you referring to? Obviously remember we're talking about a public event here with organisers/security and infrastructure so I'd be interested to hear in what cases only the existence of a mobile phone would save someones life.
• hellbanner 9y ago
  Alamo Drafthouse does this consistently without a problem. http://www.ent13.com/entertainment/movies/alamo-drafthouse-movie-theater-cell-phone-policy/ http://www.ent13.com/entertainment/movies/alamo-drafthouse-m... Cell phone use = kicked out, banned forever. No oddly spelled startup needed.
• watwut 9y ago
  I do not have to check my phone every time I go to toilet, but in case performance turns out boring, I like to stay on toilet longer and read on the phone there. If significant percentage of adults acts certain way, then it is acting like adults by definition. Maybe you are just using "adult" as word of approval and "kid" as insult :).
• aerovistae 9y ago
  Don't be ridiculous. Fear of terrorism is not the only factor. Cellphones are one of the past century's greatest contributions to public safety. If you want to be antagonistic about the threat of a bombing, how about a more commonplace example: you're a very drunk young girl who's been separated from her friends at the concert and a pushy, aggressive guy you don't know is trying to get you into his car to go home with him. You can't text your friends that you need help because your phone is locked. Or how about this? You're a parent and you've lost track of your kid in the sea of people. You can't text or call them, because your phone is locked. Or how about this? You're alone and you have a medical condition and something goes wrong, and you need immediate attention, but you can't call 911 because your phone is locked. Your only option now to hope someone else in the crowd notices that you're passed out on the ground not from drunkenness, but from something much more urgent. Don't act like cellphones have no practical use and are just social media machines. How absurd. They save lives every day and this policy is insanely dangerous for everyone. People here saying "How did people survive before cellphones," well, guess what, in many cases they probably didn't.
  • stuntkite 9y ago
    Lets all just bury all of our light up rectangles and move to the woods. Twitter has brought us so much pain it's time to go back to dirt farming. I'm only half joking. I've given up my phone for a DIY LTE project that barely works but is fun and I'm off social media for 4 years. Sure there is safety and stuff, but if you wanna watch the white stripes shred or some other exclusive art, maybe that's a thing you can deal with. You can also just not go and buy the Mp3s to load on your precious digital leash. I'm gonna go walk to the grocery store repeatedly hitting refresh on HN on my kludge phone just to prove how much I don't need it.
  • titzer 9y ago
    > Or how about this? > Or how about this? > Don't act like cellphones have no practical use sigh Humans have survived for hundreds of thousands of years without cellphones. For any new tech, you can continually imagine scenarios where survival "absolutely depends on" having this tech. How about this? You're sitting in your ISS sleep capsule and suddenly the station starts to depressurize. You hop into your reentry-safe spacesuit and exit the station, set the suit to auto-reentry and then aero-brake from Mach 18 to 0 and touch down safely in your backyard with your parachute. See? A reentry safe single-person spacesuit is absolute essential to survival. Your example is that you pass out at a concert with literally thousands of people around and no one helps you. Or you are drunk and a guy is hitting on you. Or your kid is missing. And you call the person you are responding to ridiculous. Cellphones have made people into helpless, scared sheep.
• rovek 9y ago
  Taking away people's agency because it's perceived they can't look after themselves is rarely well-received, with good reason. Shows are for the audience, not the artist, so if 1/4 of the audience are using their phones then perhaps the artist should be less pretentious.