Cellphones in concerts

Started by Siedler, April 21, 2007, 01:01:17 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Bunny

#60
Quote from: bhodges on May 10, 2007, 12:55:02 PM
I heard it, too, even up in the rafters.  People were glancing around angrily...

Carnegie made a slight error at the beginning: the audio announcement (currently a ringing sound followed by "please turn off your cell phones and other electronic devices") is usually delivered after the lights are dimmed, when the crowd is quiet.  Unfortunately it came when people were still in the process of being seated, and it was completely drowned out by the normal audience sounds at the time.  (I'm not crazy about starting each concert with these verbal announcements, but unfortunately I do think they help.)

--Bruce

That's like a blame the victim defense. :o

Everyone who goes to the movies, concerts, ballet, theater, or any lecture in an auditorium knows better nowadays.  Usually the person thinks they had the cellphone off or on vibrate.   There is only one conceivable reason to keep that phone on, and that's if you are on the organ transplant list.  The other day they had a story of a child on the list who was taken to a concert by his mother when an organ suddenly became available way ahead of schedule.  The mother had her cell on vibrate, so it went unanswered.  The hospital then contacted the police who used the cellphone gps to locate her.  They called the concert management and stopped the concert to make a public announcement that she contact the box office immediately.  Can you imagine Mahler grinding to a halt in the middle of the 1st movement for that?  That was a situation of life and death, and the only reason to keep that phone on.

anasazi

Am I wrong, or isn't there a device that can be installed in any room that makes cell phones innop?  I do not see why movie theaters, concert halls etc. do not make use of this device.

longears

Quote from: anasazi on May 12, 2007, 12:21:41 AM
Am I wrong, or isn't there a device that can be installed in any room that makes cell phones innop?  I do not see why movie theaters, concert halls etc. do not make use of this device.
Where can I get one?

SonicMan46

Quote from: Bunny on May 11, 2007, 03:20:36 AM
....There is only one conceivable reason to keep that phone on, and that's if you are on the organ transplant list.  The other day they had a story of a child on the list who was taken to a concert by his mother when an organ suddenly became available way ahead of schedule.  The mother had her cell on vibrate................

Bunny - great story - kind of the 'exception to the rule' - if the phone was set to vibrate (I wear a beeper myself), then the mother should have left the concert, answered the phone, and then replied appropriately, i.e. retrieved her child from his/her concert seat and then proceeded accordingly - I'm glad that all turned out well for the child needing the transplant, but the situtation may have been handled differently w/o such disruption (BTW - I'm an 'academic radiologist' at a major medical center which deals w/ many 'transplant' patients, so I thoroughly understand the situation) - again, thanks for the story -  :D

beclemund

I don't know what people did before cell phones...
"A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession." -- Albert Camus

uffeviking

Quote from: beclemund on May 13, 2007, 05:51:01 PM
I don't know what people did before cell phones...

The same what I am doing now without a cell phone! Live happily, undisturbed and free of the umbilical chord advertised as 'should-never-be-without-it' by hucksters!  :D

mahlertitan

i think you get a fine about 100 bucks here if you use a cell phone while driving, i say the same law applies for classical concerts.

Steve

Quote from: MahlerTitan on May 13, 2007, 08:39:46 PM
i think you get a fine about 100 bucks here if you use a cell phone while driving, i say the same law applies for classical concerts.

No, the wealthy could simply pay the fine repeatedly. I say forget the fine, go for a complete ban. We'll sell them tickets, but when they come, they have to watch the concert on the screen outside.  $:)

mahlertitan

Quote from: Steve on May 13, 2007, 09:25:14 PM
No, the wealthy could simply pay the fine repeatedly. I say forget the fine, go for a complete ban. We'll sell them tickets, but when they come, they have to watch the concert on the screen outside.  $:)

or, build a huge Faraday's cage around music buildings, so they will not get any signal.

knight66

Then hundreds of people who need transplants will die!

No, plain old removal of body parts should do it.

Mike
DavidW: Yeah Mike doesn't get angry, he gets even.
I wasted time: and time wasted me.

AB68

A couple of years ago I attended a concert in London. The Philharmonia conducted by Dohnanyi. About two minutes into Bruckner's fourth Symphony a mobile phone started to ring. Dohnanyi stoped conducting, the orchestra stoped playing, and Dohnanyi waved his finger to the audience, then started from the beginning again.
I was glad this didn't happen at the end of the movement.



Siedler

Perhaps this could help? They have even portable ones (only 15 m radius, though).  >:D
Cell phone jammers

Solitary Wanderer

We attended a play a couple of weeks ago and right near the end during an especially magical moment of gentle pathos somebodys cellphone went off. It rang several times as audience members began tutting and huffing in the general direction of the sound then the persons voicemail came on! Arrgh! Apart from the rudeness and distraction it really sounded especially facile in the circumstances ::)

I wish the person sitting behind the culprit had whacked them over the back of the head with their programme! ;D
'I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.' ~ Emily Bronte

Novi

Quote from: Solitary Wanderer on June 27, 2007, 07:04:04 PM
We attended a play a couple of weeks ago and right near the end during an especially magical moment of gentle pathos somebodys cellphone went off. It rang several times as audience members began tutting and huffing in the general direction of the sound then the persons voicemail came on! Arrgh! Apart from the rudeness and distraction it really sounded especially facile in the circumstances ::)

I wish the person sitting behind the culprit had whacked them over the back of the head with their programme! ;D

Sod's law - it would be gentle pathos and not the battle scene, wouldn't it? How good's your aim? The flying jaffa might be apposite ;D.

I remember reading in the paper about a Sydney Theatre Company performance of Hedda Gabler in which a phone started ringing in the front row. The culprit scrabbled about in his bag, fumbled with the phone, and somehow managed to drop it on the stage. I'm not sure how this happened as I think it was in the Drama Theatre which has a raised stage, but there you go. An actor - it may have been Hugo Weaving - handed the phone back to him, and the poor mortified bloke sat there slunked in his seat for the rest of the performance. But here's the best bit ... at the end of it, Cate Blanchett came out front and patted the guy consolingly on his knee. What a class act 0:). (Ms Blanchett, I mean ;)).
Durch alle Töne tönet
Im bunten Erdentraum
Ein leiser Ton gezogen
Für den der heimlich lauschet.

Joe Barron

All of the sudden, I am sorry John Cage died before cell phones became universal.

The Mad Hatter

Quote from: Manuel on April 23, 2007, 05:13:02 AM
That doesn't happen here. I suppose they take their medication in the interval, along with the courtesy wine and drinks offered in the lobby...


I ask ladies to keep quiet and silent, but most of them get angry and think of me as an irreverent boy, just like if I had the bad manners.

Not a cellphone issue, but most ladies take tight-plastic-packed-candies, and they are eager to eat them during 2nd and 4th movements. But as they are so respectful, they open the candy slooooowly, making noise for about 2 minutes and a half. If they are just next to me I ask them to stop. And if they don't, when the movement is finished, during those few seconds of silence I say something like "you may eat your candies now, provided you need more"

I did see a woman trying to read a book during The Rite of Spring once. I almost felt sorry for her - it was a completely futile effort - she was sitting in the front row!  ;D

greg

Quote from: The Mad Hatter on June 30, 2007, 02:15:58 AM
I did see a woman trying to read a book during The Rite of Spring once. I almost felt sorry for her - it was a completely futile effort - she was sitting in the front row!  ;D
wow, what would possess her to do such a thing!  ???

greg

maybe she thought the music would enhance the book? Maybe it was like a fast-paced mystery book? That actually wouldn't be such a bad idea...

Solitary Wanderer

Quote from: The Mad Hatter on June 30, 2007, 02:15:58 AM
I did see a woman trying to read a book during The Rite of Spring once. I almost felt sorry for her - it was a completely futile effort - she was sitting in the front row!  ;D

Yes, At the Messiah last year a family were sitting in front of us and the teenage daughter, about 14, read a book through the whole thing. I don't think she looked up once. Sad :(
'I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.' ~ Emily Bronte

The Mad Hatter

Quote from: greg on June 30, 2007, 06:50:20 AM
maybe she thought the music would enhance the book? Maybe it was like a fast-paced mystery book? That actually wouldn't be such a bad idea...

Nah, no hope. Have you ever heard the Rite from ten feet away? It's loud. I imagine she had a son or daughter playing in the orchestra (it was the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland), but little interest in classical music.

Solitary Wanderer: at least she was reading - a lot of fourteen-year-olds don't. And who knows, she may grow into classical music at a later stage.