Stop with the Cell phones already

[FosseBoi]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 12:10am

OMG! What the CRAP? Is it really that hard to turn off a freeken phone!?

[alterego]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 12:11am

Perhaps they could be checked at the door.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 12:14am

It would be almost impossible to collect EVERY cell phone. The line for people's cell phones to be collected would be horrendously long. It just wouldn't work. Ever.

The penalty for having your cell phone ring should be eviction. No if's, and's, or buts. It's got to stop.

[Dirty Rotten Scoundrel]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 12:14am

Checking at the door seems IMPOSSIBLE. It would take twice as long to get people in.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 12:19am

I have never heard it happen at the Opera.

[ErikInTheCity]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 12:22am

Actually, I know this isn't the same really, but at Celine's show in Vegas, they take all cameras and cell phones. You're given a number, just like coat check and are told to retrieve it at the end of the show. The coat check was crowded with people waiting for their belongings, but that's the price you pay for bringing something considered disruptive to a show. Something serious must be done here in New York. . .

[alterego]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 12:24am

Checking at the door - I was kidding. The signal being blocked sounds like a good idea.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 12:26am

Yes, but Celine's theatre has the room for long lines and people to wait. Not one Broadway house would be capable of a line consisting of 1,000+ people to get their cell phones.

Plus, I wouldn't want to give my cell phone up. It's a very expensive phone that I take good care of, and I wouldn't want t someone else's greasy hands all over it, throwing it in a box, dropping it, scratching it, or anything else that could possibly happen.

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 12:26am

Cell phones should not have to be checked at the door. We're ADULTS for godsakes. We can press little buttons.

AND the theatres all make announcements before the shows begin. Are these people listening or are they talking on their cell phones when the announcment is being made?

That is so rude.

I like the "eviction" penalty, but that would be hard to enforce. Finding the culprit and then leading him or her out of the theatre would also add to the disruption.

Perhaps the seats can be installed with electrodes. Cell phone goes off...so do you!

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 12:29am

Evicting people would definitely cause a disturbance, but it's a disturbance i'm sure many patrons would be willing to deal with. If enough people see people being evicted (with $100 down the drain), they will tell someone about it. That person will tell someone else. And so on. Word will spread, and people will absolutely start ensuring that their cell phones are off.

[dancingthrulife04]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 12:29am

In reference to the ballet- I saw the NYCB last week, and yes, cell phones went off.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 12:32am

I would!

If it were up to me, the offender would be taken to a dark room in the basement and beaten with a club.

[Dirty Rotten Scoundrel]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 12:32am

In regards to not blocking cell signals because of things like doctors having to be contacted- Don't doctors carry special beepers for things like this? And it could just vibrate and they could up and leave? Do beepers use the same signals that cell phones do?

Posted: 6/3/06 at 12:33am

a less invasive/more legal way would be to build theaters such that reception inside is practically zero- whether that means building underground or thicker walls, i dunno but its always fun when your cell phone is on, in your hand and suddenly you have vioicemail when it didnt even ring.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 12:36am

There should be more pre-show announcements like Pasadena Playhouse's. When I saw 110 in the Shade there, just as the lights were going down, they had a cell phone go off in the hands of a plant in the audience. The lights came back up a bit, and a cast member came over and took the phone and smashed it on the floor. :) Very memorable! (But wouldn't work in much larger venues, I think.)

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 12:40am

I cannot talk to people when I'm at Target or any supermarket. I have to go outside to get a signal. So why must there be a signal at the theatre?

Munk, beaten in a dark room is mean...but not as mean as being beaten in a brightly lit room in front of a large mirror. Come on, the punishment should suit the crime!

[dancingthrulife04]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 12:40am

Heh, I wish that would work. When I was at the ballet, we were in the fourth ring (ALL the way upstairs), so something like that wouldn't work.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 12:41am

I always think of this whenever people talk about jamming signals. Now, normally my thinking doesn't sway that way, but it always does when the signal thing comes up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord-Ost

[Toon]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 1:12am

I think some of the problem is that many people don't see anything wrong with their phone ringing. They hear the announcements but feel they are entitled to use their phone and don't understand why it's a problem for others. They are the same people that will answer their phone in a movie and proceed to speak loudly and disrupt all around them, oblivious to the fact that people are outraged around them. All the announcements in the world aren't going to stop those people.

The blocking of signals is the only way this will be taken care of. Checking phones would never work, people simply wouldn't disclose they had one and the only people checking them would be the ones that would be responsible enough to turn it on in the first place. Out of curiosity, how many people have heard them go off in church? I've never heard one single phone go off in our church, ever. That brings me back to my initial point of perhaps people respecting the church, but not places like theater and movies.

[GClef2]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 1:20am

Seriously. It saves YOU the embarrassment if you shut your phone off. People are seriously so stupid.

[nodaybut2day2007]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 1:29am

I know in our theatre we tried to block signals but it ended up screwing up our mics. I don't know if this would happen in a Broadway house but it seems like that might be a reason it hasent happend yet.

[Mamie]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 1:40am

I think evicting the slob is the way to go. It would only have to happen a couple of times and then people would definitely take it seriously.

Last week I worked a show at the Shakespeare theatre in DC that demanded NO cell phones. They were so adamant about it that patrons were told when they came through the ticket takers, told again when the announcement came that the auditorium was opening, and a third time by the ushers as they gave them their playbills. I was ushering and one man got really ticked off. He said "I don't need to hear this 3 times. It's annoying!" I told him it was a great deal more annoying if his cell phone went off after the play started. The decision had already been made that if one phone went off the show would stop and not continue. The production (The Persians) was very dramatic and only lasted one act - 95 minutes. They weren't going to completely destroy the time and place created by the actors by having a phone go off.

[DAME]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 1:42am

They could start by being a little more stern with their pre- show announcements. As in.. make sure it is off.. if it rings you will be escorted out of the theater. Last year I went to see Dame Edna at the Ahmanson theater in Los Angeles. the lady in front of us had her cell phone go off. She started talking. I reached over and grabbed her phone out of her hands, She loudly yelled HEY! I put my fist up to her face and said I didn't pay $75.00 a ticket to have her ruin the show for me. I told her I will give it back after the show and if she had a problem she should go complain. She did. When she got up I quickly moved to the mezzanie through the other side. I felt so good about it. At the end of the show I handed the phone to a usher. The hell with people like that.

[emo_geek]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 2:50am

Dame...did you really do that?!? wow that took guts!

[allofmylife]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 3:28am

"If it were up to me, the offender would be taken to a dark room in the basement and beaten with a club."

I couldn't agree more, Munk.

But I still suggest we have a nun, YES I SAID A NUN, YOUGOTAPROBLEMWITHTHAT? sitting onstage right. We tell the audience, "one ring and she gets it."

Let's see how many of those cretins are gonna do anything that'd hurt a nun.