Increasingly, stars who have the clout to do so without creating empty seats at their live performances are banning cameras, cellphones and other recording devices. If you buy tickets for Chris Rock's current tour, you will be confronted with this alert…
No cellphones, cameras or recording devices will be allowed at Chris Rock's Total Blackout Tour. Upon arrival, all phones and smart watches will be secured in Yondr pouches that will be unlocked at the end of the show. Guests maintain possession of their phones throughout the night, and if needed, may access their phones at designated Yondr unlocking stations in the lobby. All guests are encouraged to print their tickets in advance to ensure a smooth entry process. Anyone caught with a cellphone in the venue will be immediately ejected. We appreciate your cooperation in creating a phone-free viewing experience.
I've been trying to figure out how I feel about this. In recent years, there have been times when I felt I had to be reachable — by my mother or her doctors when she was failing or because my friend Carolyn might need me, again for medical reasons. Cell phones made that possible.
Thinking out loud now…
When I've been in a show the last ten or so years, there have been many times when my phone vibrated to announce a call. I'd sneak a quick peek at the screen, shielding it so its light wouldn't distract anyone around me. 95% of the time, it was not a call that paramedics were en route to my mother's house or that Carolyn needed me urgently at the nursing facility…so I could ignore the call and direct my attention back to the stage. Quick, easy, unobtrusive.
But if my phone had been in a Yondr bag, I couldn't have taken the chance that it wasn't an emergency call. Not only would I have been derelict in my duty as a friend and loved one, but I wouldn't have been able to focus on the show. I would have been sitting there worrying the call was important. So I would have had to get up and unless I'd scored an aisle seat, crawl across people — "Excuse me, pardon me, excuse me, pardon me" — greatly inconveniencing them twice (once going out, once coming back) to go out and check.
That doesn't sound very good for me, my loved ones or the audience members around me. I guess I would have not gone to the show.
I'm not, by the way, questioning that the performing venue or the performers have the right to require this, unless maybe I'm not warned before I buy my ticket. I'm just trying to figure out what it means to me.
I'm also thinking about when my friend Amber and I went to see Idina Menzel at the Greek Theater a few weeks ago. From the time we got to our seats to the time the show started was more than 49 minutes and we were far from the first people to take our seats. Many people were there more than an hour. We passed some of our wait time on our phones, including practical things like figuring out where we were going to go to dinner after the show and getting the answers to a few questions that arose from conversation. Yondr doesn't just take your phone away from you during a show. It takes it away from you before the show and during intermission.
So I'm wondering if at a show that requires Yondr pouches, ticketholders delay going to their seats and then there's a mad crush, just before the entertainment commences.
Even so, I guess I'm okay with it but a few other things bother me, mostly in the realm of justifications for it. I read a lot of articles and watched several videos in which artists and promoters using Yondr defended it by saying it was for our own good. They're helping us break our unhealthy addiction to our cellphones or "You'll enjoy the show much more if you don't watch it through your phone." It's kind of insulting that you're presuming to decide that for me…
…and it's not even the real reason. The real reason is you don't want me putting pieces of your show up on YouTube.
And I'm fine with that, too. I think the Internet is a tidal wave of copyright infringement and I'm all for controlling that when the proprietors want it controlled. Some are fine with it. Some regard it as good promotion or a part of what we're paying for. (Then again: If the star engages in some copyright infringement of his own — say, it's a comedian and he does a big hunk of someone else's act — they don't want that to be recorded and used in a lawsuit. Or if the star pulls a Michael Richards and starts spouting racist crap or otherwise does something career-damaging. They're trying to prevent that from going viral.)
This isn't a big issue and it's only a temporary one at that because any day now, someone will come up with other technology to deal with this. Performance venues may have "jamming" beams that will prevent video or audio recording on the premises. Or there may be some app which you can install and it will prove to a guy at the door as you enter than you've disabled recording on your phone for the next X hours. Or something else.
But it's a little issue for now and I hope that if I go to a show where they require this, they don't keep us waiting an hour before they start. And I wish they'd be more honest about why they're doing it. It's not for our own good as audience members. It's for their own good as entrepreneurs protecting their product.