I am 100% onboard with the phone bans. There's nothing worse than hundreds of phone screens glowing in your face while you're trying to enjoy a live act. I can't imagine how weird it must feel for the performer(s) too. To go from people looking at you, making eye contact, engaging with the performance, to suddenly seeing a sea of phones pointed at you, with everyone watching you indirectly via their phone screen.

Yea, the whole "I want to watch the concert through my phone" thing I don't get at all. If you just want to watch it on your phone, why not just stay home and watch a professionally-produced concert video? Are they actually recording it for later (and are actually going to watch their low-quality recording later), or do they simply need to frame everything they experience inside a phone bezel?

They just want to brag about it, I guess. Like with photos of their meals and... well, lots of things. To each their own, but I stopped attending most shows mainly because of the annoying seas of phones in front of me.

I think humans have a natural instinct to share what they find cool / interesting.

Before this was mostly done through in person communicate, now this is primarily done through smart phones.

I'd bet that most of such recordings are not even shared or perhaps even looked at by the author (personally, I'm guilty of this). It's just some sort of compulsion to record it.

> Are they actually recording it for later (and are actually going to watch their low-quality recording later)

What's wild is how much the "low-quality recording" on a modern smartphone looks and sounds way better than bootlegs I listened to (or, god forbid, watched) in the 90s.

I don't film entire concerts but I will usually try to get a nice clip from one of my favorite songs. It's fun to revisit. I'd love it if I had short clips from shows I saw when I was 20, especially ones of bands who blew up later or fell off the face of the earth.

Thank you for pointing this out. Everytime I bring up the "phone free" thing, everyone keeps jumping on and saying "well i don't like people filming". The situation that you mentioned is exactly how I do that and what I've seen.

The exception to this is extremely mainstream performances that attract people, where it may be the one big thing they do in the year or the next.

There are far better ways to address people holding up their phones to record than to outright ban them from everyone. There are strong reasons (Bataclan) to need and have those there.

What's with the sympathy for the performer? It's hard for them to even see the audience. Most of the light is focused on them and the audience is in the dark.

What's the better way? I'm not saying phones need to be physically removed from people, just kept in pockets/bags/whatever.

As for my comment about the performer, I'm just picturing it from their perspective and to me it would feel odd to go from looking at people to looking at phones. I'm sure there are lots of people who film with their phone lights on, so that's got to be noticeable through the stage lights.

Also, why can't phones have a "concert mode" where you can film with the screen off?

It's surprisingly difficult to keep something in frame without a viewfinder. Especially if you're standing at a concert and holding your phone up.

No thanks, security is already ridiculous.

> There's nothing worse than hundreds of phone screens glowing in your face while you're trying to enjoy a live act.

Plenty of worse things. People throwing up on you. Harassment. Tarps. Passing out. Being sold water even though it's supposed to be free. Taking bottle caps away from you. People talking during the show. People yelling about politics.

I don't enjoy all the phones either, but it is what it is.

>They've pushed for aggressive one sided fan behavior policies (phone less)

That's the best thing they could do for fans.

perhaps it's ill-behaved fans enjoying the art the wrong way? do we suppose the audience should be talking during a set too?