Those of you who have followed this blog and its sister blog the525toglasgow know of my love for live music.
Recently though I decided against buying tickets to a gig not because of the price although it was a tad steep but because the band have imposed a mobile phone ban.
Now this may be a point of controversy but to me that was a step too far.
I totally understand adopting “theatre etiquette” and there being no filming or photography during stand-up comedy shows, musicals and spoken word tours as that material is not widely available to the public beforehand, Conedians don’t release albums after all but for a rock/pop band/artist to do it? Who do they think keeps them on the stage headlining shows?
It’s their fans who make them who they are and who buy all their albums, and some bands could so well to remember that.
In this age of e-tickets, fans don’t even have a ticket stub as a memento from aa gig so it’s only fair that fans might want a few photos or minutes of video.
I do agree it can be exceedingly annoying when folk have their phones held aloft for most of a show blocking everyone’s view, but band’s allow press photographers into the pit for the opening three songs so why not let fans take photos too at this time? I’m sure the majority of fans would comply with a request to only take photos or video at a certain point.
People carry phones for many reasons to a gig not just to take photos. For one, as I’ve already alluded to, your ticket is likely to be a bar code or QR code stored on your phone. Most fans will want to purchase items at the merch stall and/or the bar in the venue and the majority of these prefer card payments to cash…oh and the card is likely to be saved out in your phone, so you just need to tap to pay for your items. Bands make most of the money on a tour from merch sales so by banning phones they are likely to take a hard hit there.
If mobile phone bans at gigs become more commonplace, bands might want to put themselves in the fans’ shoes for a moment and think about how they’d feel if the ego maniac on stage was preventing them from sending a quick good night text to a child, or sending a message home to check that everything is ok, especially if you’ve left a young child or someone who is ill. Fans might have elderly parents that they check in with before bedtime. People who take medication at specific times often have alarms in their phones to remind them.
If the band has dictated that phones are banned then by having them locked in sealed pouches for the duration of a show none of the above can happen and that could be causing unnecessary risks.
Personally, attending gigs while The Big Green Gummi Bear was terminally ill was one of the few moments of respite, I got from the situation but if I had been forced by the band to be uncontactable for those few precious hours of normality, I would have had to stay at home and that would have been detrimental to my mental and emotional wellbeing.
So, artists who feel the need to ban phones, next time pause to remember who keeps you on that stage doing what you love and reflect on how you would feel if your human rights were being infringed in such a manner.
Coral McCallum 