Posted by Jay Bertolet on March 17, 2002 at 09:39:32:
In Reply to: Re: Black Lung Crisis in NY posted by Richard on March 16, 2002 at 13:32:37:
This is SO true! Just last night we were in the pit playing Boris Godunov and right near the end, Boris speaks his last and keels over. In that poignant moment of silence, a cell phone in the audience rang. This was the third time that night that I heard a phone ring.
To be fair, this season's cold virus has a particularly nasty cough component. Still, what ever happened to common courtesy? My wife never goes to concerts if she's sick and might possibly disturb the other patrons with her coughing, etc.
We've started making an announcement at the beginning of all our concerts (they've been doing this at the opera for many years now) to the effect of "Please turn your cell phones, pagers, and watch chimes off and if you're going to eat hard candy during the performance, please unwrap it now.". This always gets a laugh from the audience but then that is always followed by applause. I think a large component of our audiences really appreciates this sort of courtesy and respect for the other audience members and they are just as upset about the bad behavior as we are. One of the problems the FPO has in this regard is that we don't own our performance venues. The ushers at our concerts are voluteers, provided by the facility which doesn't answer to us. They have no motivation to enforce any rules because they have no vested interest. I once did a concert where an usher was standing at a side door, not 10 feet away from the stage, and he had his hand in his pocket playing with his keys. I was probably 50 feet away from him and I could hear the jingling on stage. I can only imagine what the patrons around him must have thought.
I hope we as an industry can find an effective way to educate our audiences on this issue. If we don't do this soon, we may start seeing our audiences dwindle even further.
My opinion for what it's worth...