I read last week
where the deep-thinkers at the Boston
Symphony have
decided the way to bring in younger
audience members
is to introduce iPads loaded with
content specific
to each performance.
This is an area of
some concern to me as well as many others
as we watch to see
how Boston Symphony patrons react to the
move.
In a sense, it is
a logical progression, since the audience they –
and many other
performing arts organizations are chasing –
are very familiar
with the technology at play here.
So far the iPads
are only being used for the “Casual Friday”
concerts along
with reduced prices, and only to people
sitting in the
rear orchestra secton. And the iPads
themselves
can’t be used to
surf the internet during the concert, either.
The fear, of
course, is allowing such touch-screen technology
into North
American concert halls. After all, look
at how
attached people
have become to their beloved smart-phones
even once the
lights go down. The number of times I
can spot
someone texting or
surfing the net when they should be paying
attention to
what’s going on up on stage – be it a concert or live
theatre event –
quite frankly worries me.
Now I know, I know, we have nothing to fear here, they say.
After all, wasn't it the Canadian Opera Company many years ago
that pioneered Surtitles at opera performances so the audience
members can follow along with the opera in their seats. Once
dismissed as a new-fangled and unnecessary technological advance,
the idea has now travelled the globe and is standard practice in one
form or another in just about any opera house now.
Okay, they help us to understand the opera we're watching. I get that.
But I think that process is a little less annoying than having one of those
ubiquitous lighted screens in many laps while the house lights are down.
Other orchestras appear to be following the BSO down that new
technology road, too. The Philadelphia Orchestra, for example, has
developed a new app to let audience members follow along with
program notes, such as translations of vocal parts, in real time from
their personal devices.
Again, using a personal device during the concert. So who is going
to ensure the thing doesn't ring during the performance, or the
audience member doesn't decided to follow a game instead while
their spouse is enjoying the concert? One wonders...
We’ve become a
nation addicted to technology and try as we
might, we can’t
seem to put it down, even to enjoy a
performance we
have presumably paid good money to attend.
Introducing more
technology into the concert hall might seem
like fighting fire
with fire, if you will, but what if it backfires?
Maybe I’m a little
old-fashioned here, but I like the idea of
shutting off the
world for a couple of hours or so and just
escaping into the
music or theatre performance. And that
means shutting off
the electronic world, too.
If you need
another reason to perhaps shun the use of this
shared technology
at performances, think about how many
others have used
the device, and have they been properly
cleaned between
performances?
Do TV remotes in
hotel rooms get cleaned routinely? Not
all that often,
I’m afraid. If nothing else makes you
sit up and
take notice of the
performance, that just might.
It might even keep
you up at night.
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