How to watch a concert with your phone on

How to watch a concert with your phone on

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norman lebrecht

November 01, 2014

Geoff Edgers has cracked it. Read here.

concert phones

Anyone else tried the app?

 

Comments

  • Theodore McGuiver says:

    Why not just lsten to the effing music, or is that too much to ask?

    • Kathleen McCarthy says:

      Apparently yes. Gone are the days when grown-ups (AKA adults) were expected to model good manners and appropriate behavior. Nowadays they are as bad as the kids.

  • Dave T says:

    Sounds like a nightmare of an evening. If this thing ever takes off, you’ll no longer see me at the concert hall. Can’t imagine having to sit next to some guy fiddling with his phone all evening.

  • RW2013 says:

    Triumph of the iFone zombies.

  • SVM says:

    Besides the surfeit of artificial light, the increased fidgeting and lack of enforced focus (which is, in my view, part of the point of attending a concert live instead of listening on the radio) would, in my opinion, be severely detrimental to the musical experience. Therefore, I would avoid any concert that promoted the utilisation of mobile telephones in the way described by Mr Edgers. If I were desperate to follow a piece, I would bring a hard copy of the score/libretto with me, and follow it quietly, making a special effort not to rustle the pages. On a more practical note, a liberal policy on mobile devices would render an accidental ring/alarm far more likely. In my view, mobile telephones ought not to be taken into the auditorium at all (which means that all concert venues ought to provide *free* cloakrooms just outside the entrance to the auditorium, and desist from defining a mobile telephone as a “valuable” that cannot be deposited).

  • Theodore McGuiver says:

    Right. Reading the other comments in this thread, I sense there are people like me who also despair of this obligatory, perpetual entreaty to superficiality. I feel like starting a parallel society which teaches children and adults alike to be respectful to others in public as in private; train them to concentrate on one thing for up to hours at a time; how to engage in conversation with no recourse to electronic devices; show them how to hold a knife and fork properly and take responsability for their actions.

    Anybody with me?

  • Neil McGowan says:

    Here in Russia, anyone who uses a phone during a concert, for any reason, is slung out. Before most opera, ballet and symphonic performances there is an announcement that the use of such equipment is banned – and that users will be thrown out, and permanently banned from attending performances at the venue in future. I have seen this rule enforced, and approve of it.

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