Audience Etiquette
(Or Concert Etiquette Part II)

Audience etiquette - and sadly in this day and age, more speciofically mobile phone etiquette, must be addressed. Miss Cressida B. Bell points you in the right direction.

We covered the basics of concert etiquette regarding applauding last time. Now let us move on to mobile phone etiquette during concerts. I have only one thing to say about this:

NO!

No, it is worse than a concert etiquette faux pas, one ought to be arrested for letting one’s telephone ring in the concert hall. No 1920s to 1950s fashion conscious girl should ever be caught with a ringing telephone in a concert hall.

If you absolutely MUST bring the thing with you, then turn it off. And by off I mean OFF. Don’t put it on vibrate. It might just lie next to your compact in your purse and rattle against it when it rings.

Actually, it doesn’t have to lie against anything; the person next to you will be able to hear it vibrate no matter what. Dreadfully annoying.

Really, I do not care if you are expecting an important business call. I do not care that your daughter is about to give birth. That is your business and not the business of the 300 people in the concert hall.

If that business call is so important to you, stay in the office to wait for it.

I understand that these days it is very important to seem important and receiving urgent calls at all times of the day is part of seeming important.

You may think that picking up your cellular phone wherever you are is accepted mobile phone etiquette. It is not. And it certainly is not proper audience etiquette. Do not bring your telephone to a concert. If that call is so important to you, stay home.

In case I have not made myself clear, let me repeat the mobile phone etiquette rule during concerts for you:

NO!

~Cressida B. Bell