Of all the zombie topics people will be arguing about long after I’m dead and gone, I would put mobile phones in the concert hall at the top of that list.
At a recent concert, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the orchestra was encouraging patrons to use their phone to take no-flash pics, but only if they were sitting in the last five rows of the main floor or balcony.
No one threw a fit and I even saw one patron move to that part of the balcony. After the concert, it was fun to see pics of the concert show up with the orchestra and soloist tagged in.
At the same time, there’s no shortage of old school attitudes but it’s heartening to see some gentle pushback in the form of taking a more empathetic approach. Case in point, this recent Twitter exchange between @ruth_hartt and a core patron underscores the mountain of learned behavior it will take before substantive change takes root.
