Yondr... Put your phone away!

The implication being that this is more about photos and copyright than distracting fellow audience members tut tut.

Cant see it being very practical. Venue would need to take on extra staff to implement this. Also can you imagine a large venue like the o2 with 20,000 people leaving at the same time. The queues would be horrific. And if you forget to turn the sound off on your phone and it goes off in the theatre you wouldn't be able to get to it to turn it off.

If you have a babysitter at home and go out to the theatre then you should choose a babysitter who can be trusted to cope with a crisis independently, or what the hell are you doing leaving your baby in the hands of someone you can't trust to take care of them? If you're on call for work then you should make a point of only going to places where you can actually respond to a work call in a timely manner, or what use is there for you to be on call? If you're going to be an hour or two from home it's difficult to justify the claim that any phone call needs to be taken immediately, because it's not as if you can actually do anything immediately apart from telling the caller that you'll be home in a couple of hours and they'll have to handle it until then.

I don't think this is aimed at large venues or theatres with seating. Their website says:

"Yondr creates phone-free spaces for artists, comedians, teachers, organizations and more."

So I think it's more aimed at lectures and talks and such (which don't take that long or offer proper breaks regularly) or gigs in small venues such as pubs, where people can easily get up. It would also be easy to implement in concert venues that are standing room only, where people can push through to a "designed phone space" when their phone vibrates. I think concerts are also the worst affected by obsessive filming, often making it impossible for those further back to see anything but a sea of phones held high (and the singer staring into a sea of screens rather than happy human faces).

I can't see this work in bigger venues. And musicals especially often encourage the use of phones with countless people sharing photos of themselves in front of the stage (pre-show) on social media and filming encores, megamixes and the like (officially allowed) to also share. To disallow that would mean shooting themselves in the foot.

So... I can see it being a good idea in certain places and venues. I'd support it at concert venues with standing room only and venues with flexible seating where it's no problem to come and go. In a regular theatre though? Nope.

The same thing people did for 2,000 years before mobile phones happened...

I can't wait for this to happen everywhere. Every theatre, every concert arena and every cinema on earth should have them. Phones have completely ruined all 3 experiences since they arrived. I can't wait for it to be a thing of the past.

If you can't survive without your phone for 3 hours, do the rest of us a favour and stay home x

Genuinely interested how this is going to work at the Palace Theatre given the capacity is just under 2000, how much extra aggro is that going to create with that many people trying to get their phones back at the same time? Don't get me wrong I agree with the idea in principle it's in practice I'm doubtful.

Yondr pouches are actually being used on Broadway at the moment - at Freestyle Love Supreme, and Hannah Gadsby used them at her extended run Off-Broadway earlier this year (where audience members were asked to put the phone on airline mode before placing it in the pouch), and as noted above are increasingly being used in large scale comedy gigs in the USA.

And yes, in truth, it's less to do with inconsiderate audience behaviour and more about protecting IPR and copyright, which is why it's mainly comedy acts, sketch shows or musicians who are using them.

Of course you can say that you don't have a mobile phone - and as long as you switch if off before you enter the theatre no-one will be any the wiser - but it certainly makes it easier for front of house staff to spot anyone who does try to use a phone (for recording or other purposes) during the performance. I know that they've been used at Brooklyn Academy of Music which has more than 2,000 seats.

Every show is a phone free show x

The pouch blocks any signal getting to the phone I believe x

Not according to the FAQ’s

www.overyondr.com/faq



So for the numpty who doesn’t switch to silent, the phone could be ringing in the pouch with no way of switching it off without leaving the auditorium. 

Absolutely!