Slashdot Mirror
Alicia Keys Latest Artist To Enforce No Cell Phone Policy at Concerts (slashgear.com)
Shane McGlaun, reporting for SlashGear:It appears that artists of all sorts are getting very serious about keeping fans from using smartphones while they are at their concerts or events. The latest musician to ban cell phones at her events is Alicia Keys. Fans aren't forced to give up their smartphones at the door to be locked up in some locker or box until the show is over. Rather, fans are handed a special pouch that is locked up with their smartphone inside the fan keeps that pouch with them during the event, but they can't get to the device to call, take photos, or shoot video. If they need to use their device during the show the users can go back to the door and a worker passes a disc about the size of a bagel over the bag to unlock it and the fan can step outside to use their smartphone.
Banning cell phones so you don't have to try to look around people who insist on holding their phones over their heads. Or banning cell phones because you don't want an amateur video of your concert on youtube. Given my jaded view of the music industry, I'd bet on the latter. However, I've always wondered what the people who insist on taking photos and videos of everything they see do with those. Are they the modern day equivalent of those who used to corner people with their slide projectors while they begrudgingly sat and pretended to care? Enjoy your life, quit pretending everybody else wants to experience every second of it too.
You do realize that cell phones didn't always exist, and people still managed to survive? I'm sure concert survival rates won't drop drastically because of a potential 2 hour gap where your cellphone doesn't work.
I came to see the band, not your fucking cell phone that you insist and holding over your head, blocking my goddamned view.
Saw one of my favorite bands recently. The girl behind us actually had the temerity to ask us to "keep it down" because she was recording the band on her cell phone. At a rock concert.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Let me guess. You're one of the people who likes to stare at your full-brightness-enabled phone during movies and other performances, without bothering to think that it's as much or more the other paying customers you're pissing off, not the performing artist(s). Has it occurred to you that the person on stage might be wanting their paying customers to be able to enjoy the performance without people like you wrecking everyone's dark-adjusted vision and providing a bright visual distraction that, because of perspective, is larger than the person on the stage that everyone's just spent a bunch of money to see? I know, you really just don't care, because it's all about you. I wonder if there's anything the person sitting in front of YOU might be able to do that would make you wish they'd stop? Maybe, shining a flashlight in your face the whole time? Or is that, like, so cool, man!
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I'd simply refuse to enter and request compensation (full purchase refund, parking expenses). If not, take the ticket merchant or responsible venue coordinatator to court and also request compensation for lost personal time. This type of information should be made clear before the purchase is made.
I've grown tired of organizations and individuals encroaching on what I consider others' basic rights for their own personal interests. If you're a live performer, cell phones are not hurting your business.
And it's exactly because of assholes like you that going anywhere, movie, concert, etc., had become unbearable. Fuck you and your fucking phone.
There are already ambulances and police on site at any event of this size. Insurance requires it, the fire code likely requires it, common sense dictates it, and the artists usually have it in their contract (even if they're only thinking of themselves). Trying to get help sent from the outside will likely take longer than finding someone in a position of authority at the venue.
"If there was a gay Afro-Puertorican Linux distribution, I'd give it a try" ~lucm