Theaters bend rules for smartphone addicts
After years of battling mobile devices, some venues are finally encouraging their use.
The sad reality in this digital age is that it can be tough to part with your phone for two hours. Even for amazing theater performances.Theaters have been battling rogue texters and Facebookers for years, and many are just tired of fighting the good fight. So some are now giving in and introducing "tweet seats" where the audience is actually encouraged to watch with a phone in one hand.
The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis is the latest to offer special seats for smartphone users. The $15 seats are only available for certain performances and are on the balcony level, away from the view of other patrons, Minnesota Public Radio reports.
More theaters are setting aside tickets for phone users, recognizing that allowing someone to chronicle a theater performance in real time for hundreds of friends also represents a fantastic marketing opportunity.
"Coast to coast, theaters are experimenting with how to use 'tweet seats' effectively," Rick Dildine, the executive director for Shakespeare Festival St. Louis, told USA Today. "The arts are evolving right now, they are participatory. . . Social media is a tool we rely on, and we have been unafraid to experiment with it."
Tweeting during an opera has even been allowed. The public relations manager from Goodspeed Opera House told USA Today that it was "sort of an enhancement" because it allowed audience members to interact during a show.
A new theater under construction in Bellevue, Wash., is already promising open tweeting. The 2,000-seat concert hall will have a "laissez-faire phone policy," Time reports. One reason? It wants to attract younger visitors.
Once this becomes standard policy at theaters, will movie theaters become more open to the idea?
More from Money Now
- Drug companies battle meth scourge
- The market's winners and losers of 2012
- Visit your parents -- or get sued by them
| Tags: | EntertainmentTechnology |
The funny thing about people is that even though they are doing something completely rude and obnoxious, they will:
1. Rarely Admit it ..
and 2. Be very quick to call someone else out for being rude..
for instance, Miami drivers who go straight thru stop signs, then flip you the bird when you honk at them.
Will these rude people be polite enough to pay extra to sit in seats with other rude people, I hope so, but probably not.
I highly doubt people will be willing to pay the extra cost just so they can tweet during the movie. I see people texting and tweeting in movie theaters all the time, regardless of the ads telling them not to. Also how does the theater intend to punish those who decide to pull their phone out when they aren't in the specially marked seats?
DATA PROVIDERS
Copyright © 2013 Microsoft. All rights reserved.
Quotes are real-time for NASDAQ, NYSE and AMEX. See delay times for other exchanges.
Fundamental company data and historical chart data provided by Thomson Reuters (click for restrictions). Real-time quotes provided by BATS Exchange. Real-time index quotes and delayed quotes supplied by Interactive Data Real-Time Services. Fund summary, fund performance and dividend data provided by Morningstar Inc. Analyst recommendations provided by Zacks Investment Research. StockScouter data provided by Verus Analytics. IPO data provided by Hoover's Inc. Index membership data provided by SIX Financial Information.
Japanese stock price data provided by Nomura Research Institute Ltd.; quotes delayed 20 minutes. Canadian fund data provided by CANNEX Financial Exchanges Ltd.
RECENT POSTS
The fraudster says he's making $40 a month -- about the same as Bangladesh garment workers.
- Motor home sales rise in hopeful economic sign
- Mike Bloomberg: Skip college, become a plumber
- Will Yahoo ruin Tumblr?
- Some customers ashamed of their McDonald's bags
- Obamacare could bring more Band-Aid coverage
- Taxpayers won't win on General Motors shares
- Are hipsters hiking Pabst Blue Ribbon prices?
- 8 things about Tumblr's young, rich founder
- Stephen King's latest book sticks to print
MARKET UPDATE
[BRIEFING.COM] The Russell 2000 crosssed the 1,000 level for the first time ever today and the S&P 500 established a new all-time, intraday high. Those were some of the more memorable highlights of what was an otherwise nondescript day of trading.
By and large, there just wasn't a lot of conviction on the part of either buyers or sellers. The major indices spent time on either side of the unchanged line, but never put a whole lot of distance between themselves and ... More
More Market News
TOP STOCKS
When it comes to efficiency gains, a watt saved is a watt earned.
MSN MONEY'S
- Shared
- Commented
- Viewed
