Phones at concerts – the final call?

It’s a situation we’re all familiar with. You’ve gone out to watch a show – a gig, a comedian, whatever – and you’re sitting there, enjoying the action when you see the tell-tale flickers of a phone screen. Sometimes it’s a stealthy movement, but normally you’ll see phones rise up into the air as the person tries to record what’s going on, or get a photo charting the action (of the person on-stage or, in the worst cases, themselves at the show). And perhaps that person is you. Well, new research commissioned by Eventbrite has found that gig-goers are increasingly fed up with mobile phone use during events, which they hope will encourage people to make the most of live experiences more.

More than 1000 UK gig-goers were polled and, of the respondents, 70% said that they found it irritating when people constantly take pictures or video during live performances, and 69% would support ‘more than minimal action’ to minimise the disruption. However, nearly half (49%) said they had taken photos and videos at the events they’d attended (a figure that rises to 62% in the 18-24 and 35-44 age brackets).

Confirming the individualist use of the phone, there was a big discrepancy in the survey between people’s expectations of how other people should use their phones and how they themselves behave. Dr Lee Hadlington, Associate Professor in Cyberpsychology at De Montfort University, summed it up: “You’ve got a paradox. People are saying ‘it’s OK if I use my phone at an event – because I want to get this special photo – but when someone else does it, that’s really annoying.”

How do you condense the magic of a two-hour show into brief snippets and pictures?

Why does any of this matter – after all, it’s just a phone and a quick image, right? Well, using a phone can massively impact on the experience – if you’re lifting it up to get an image, you’re almost certainly blocking someone else’s view. The light can be really distracting, with a lot of gig venues being dark (except the stage), and it can put the performer off in a smaller setting.

There’s also, I think, something really quite tragic in this insistence on documenting everything and anything – you’re sitting there, maybe with one of the greatest musicians in the world on-stage, and you’d prefer to watch it through your screen (there’s a general life lesson to take away here – just because you can document something, it doesn’t mean you should). People don’t live in the moment and embrace the experience that a live show has to offer (it sounds cliched but, if you’ve never been to one, you really can’t imagine the atmosphere) because they’re determined to capture that moment and share it with their followers. And it is, after all, just a moment – how do you condense the magic of a two-hour show into brief snippets and pictures?

The obvious question here is what should be done. I don’t particularly like seeing phones out, but banning them seems a bit unnecessary (although 13% of the poll supported ‘no phone zones’, and artists like Jack White and Sam Smith have recently demanded that they be locked up in special pouches before their shows begin). Other suggestions in the Eventbrite survey included gentle nudges to make phone use more discrete (41%) and audience spot-checks for overuse (17%). Some artists have banned phones entirely at their gigs, and some merely ask their fans to live in the moment and so refrain from using them. 81% say that they understood why an artist may not like videoing and photographing during the event, but that understanding is clearly a way away from practice.

It’s just a matter of respect

It’s not an issue the industry is unaware of – according to feedback collected by the Association for Electronic Music and thee Association of Independent Festivals, four out of five industry professionals had concerns about people taking pictures or videos during performances, but a majority (63%) had no measures in place to manage mobile phone use. The Association for Electronic Music’s General Manager Greg Marshall suggests that it’s maybe just a matter of finding the middle ground: “Capturing a video or a picture moment from a show is clearly important to a lot of event attendees, but it can also cause annoyance to others, particularly if phones are held up excessively. We should look to strike a balance to ensure that both viewpoints are respected.”

I don’t think we’re going to wind up in a situation where phones are completely blacklisted at gigs, but it’s just a matter of respect for the artist, the audience and yourself – don’t be so self-obsessed and shallow. A quick photo of a musician seems reasonable, but watching the whole performance through a lens baffles me (the tickets to some of these are so expensive, I don’t see why you would actively worsen the experience for yourself). Live in the moment and enjoy the show – you really won’t regret it.