God. They could enforce it just like they enforce the no pictures rule at most theatres. But can you imagine being an usher and having to tell people to keep their phones away? I think I could do it but would other people want to? Like on an airplane..?
"Never mind confiscating a phone, we can't even delete a picture when a patron is caught taking one. The patron has to do it themselves while house staff watches."
...and it's satisfying to have them do.
And, honestly, nearly everyone I have asked to delete a photo does it without much of a fuss. People ask and I explain the copyright issues, which many of them have never even considered.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
^ nevertheless, it's inconsiderate, unnecesarily distracting to the rest of the audience, a pain in the ass, symbolic of "the rules are for someone else, not me" and illegal.
I have noticed over the past few years that it is not so much the phones ringing anymore, it is the texting and the annoying light from the phones. I asked a lady one evening recently if she could please turn her phone off as it was distracting and she said "It is off, I am reading texts from work". Then that means your phone is on! (And I told her that. She turned it off.)
Ushers can take phones if pictures are being taken but some patrons get really upset if you touch their phones. I have seen patrons put them away after taking pictures and when the usher approaches them, of course, they lie and refuse to pull their phones out.
It's simple, really. Each machine can be painted with the artwork for the show that's playing at that theatre. Mini body scanners can be sold as merch. It'll be great!
"Be on your guard! Jerks on the loose!"
http://www.roches.com/television/ss83kod.html
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"If any relationship involves a flow chart, get out of it...FAST!"
The only way to effectively end cell phone usage in theatres is to block the cell phone reception signal, as many theatres in other countries do. Unfortunately, it's illegal to block cell phone reception in the United States.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body