Mobile Phone Warning

[piggypop]

My link

from the dailymash.co.uk

Festival-goers hoping acts won't distract from camera phone use

AS the festival season begins, there are growing concerns the events are increasingly focusing on music instead of gratuitous, ego-driven amateur photography.

Festival promoters are booking increasingly expensive line-ups featuring so-called 'bands', prompting fears that live music is a deliberate attempt to distract people from constantly taking pictures.

Tom Logan, 26, said: "The point about being at a festival is gathering the pictorial evidence proving to everyone else that you were at a festival, for which you read need one crowd shot about every 19 seconds.

"Then you stick those images on Flickr so that everyone thinks you have an amazing, cool life and don't spend nine-tenths of the year working in a recruitment job because you're actually a dreary, witless sack of shit.

"That last bit was totally hypothetical, of course. I am cool."

He added: "Last year at Glastonbury there were some really noisy, bass-y band type things that were shaking my iPhone around so that I couldn't get a several dozen priceless shots of my friends wearing colourful hats while eating falafels on drugs.

"I just hope Michael Eavis and co aren't going all 'music' on us, that's all."

This year also sees the launch of the first fully photography-centric festival, Photobury Fayre.

Promoter, Julian Cook, said: "There's no acts, just thousands of people in a field lifting each other up just high enough so they can get a really good shot of the crowd.

[rhysieg]

Haha, photography isnt as bad as the facebook crew, who the hell would even waste time at glastonbury on facebook, I remember walking away from gorillaz and walking around the back of the crowd towarda john peel last year... there was a sea of blue and white screens of people on facebook, sad sad people ive got to say....

[TwistedReligion]

An Android phone, a Beyonce Tweet or a U2 related Facebook status will not make the music louder, the beer colder or the sun warmer on your back.

[Cooter]

what? why?

[glastonbury2008]

Are people really expecting there smart phones to last from wednesday morning to sunday. Mine bearly lasts a day. Carphone warehouse are doing a phone for a penny if you buy £10 credit. That'll do me for glastonbury x

Edited June 17, 2011 by glastonbury2008

[Amii]

Brilliant.

If I come home, go on Facebook, and see one photo of the festival on that Instagram app, it's instant unfriending time.

[glastonbury2008]

Brilliant.

If I come home, go on Facebook, and see one photo of the festival on that Instagram app, it's instant unfriending time.

[eoinca]

Nothing worse than being stuck behind some dope with their phone in the air for the whole gig.

The worst part is, the quality of the videos is atrocious!

[mimp]

Are people really expecting there smart phones to last from wednesday morning to sunday. Mine bearly lasts a day. Carphone warehouse are doing a phone for a penny if you buy £10 credit. That'll do me for glastonbury x

[paulbrock]

I might have been guilty of this sort of thing, but everyone I would want to share photos and thoughts with will be with me at Glasto the rest of them can wait till I get home.

Will prob be checking twitter for Park stage rumours though....

[austingz]

Nothing worse than being stuck behind some dope with their phone in the air for the whole gig.

The worst part is, the quality of the videos is atrocious!

[Monorail]

I've never understood why people spend more time at gigs playing with their phone then actually watching the band, but updating your facebook from a festival, WHY?

[a robot]

all i can say is each to their own really

who really *really* cares if some people like to go on facebook at festivals, or any other such thing in fact? it's not affecting you. as for phones in the air taking videos - also who cares!? a phone is tiny, move a step to the side and you'll be reet.

[CitizenErased]

The world's gone mad, no doubt about that. I think that a frightening level of the population is now genuinely addicted to being plugged in and would probably suffer serious psychological issues if this was removed from their lives, there would be suicides, massively-multiplayer-ritualistic-panic-attacks and extreme depression.

I'll be taking a camera and going snap happy when I see things I think warrant capturing, I may even indulge in the odd video of the queue while waiting to get in, or a quick pan across people during a song or two here and there, to capture the heady atmosphere of everyone enjoying themselves, but some people just seem to literally stand there for an entire setlist, experiencing it through a CMOS sensor, I just really don't understand that.

R1BW during Gaga's set was the worst I've seen in recent times, it was genuinely quite disturbing to see all of us homosapiens standing there like digital zombies, seemingly unable to interface with the universe around us without pointing a gadget at it.

For myself, I work in IT, I spend more hours in each and every day building applications, working with gadgets and being plugged in than my soul could ever be rescued from now and I can't wait to get away from it for a week or so. The thought of walking around a music festival with a smartphone stuffed in front of my face distresses me.

[ethereal]

I do loads of pics/video at gigs/festival shows, but my camera's in front of my eye. If I dn't have the shot I don't do it

Pulp @ Primavera had a ridiculous sea of mobile phones a couple of weeks ago, though it looked quite pretty from the back I must admit, like when people held lighters in the air back in the 80's

[Spindles]

When they have watched their clips a few times, they will remember the event better than you.

[KaleidoscopeEyes]

HA my festy phone won't even do facebook. It's got snake II instead!

[mirandamayhem]

Brilliant.

If I come home, go on Facebook, and see one photo of the festival on that Instagram app, it's instant unfriending time.

[Leggins]

I think the issue isn't that there are people who spend their whole festival on their phone, it's that when you walk around and catch the moment that people are, so often, that you start to judge. It is the same reason that everyone thinks that some people are on drugs all the time, some people are drunk all the time, you are only seeing them for a moment and it is judgemental to therefore assume that every other moment must be spent doing the same thing. I'll be taking some photos, not spending my whole time doing it, just like I'll be having a drink or two, not spending the whole time drunk.

[YetAnotherOldHippy]

People take photgraphs with their telephones? WITCHCRAFT! Burn them, etc.

The mobile phone has probably seen the biggest change in the 25 years I've been going to Glastonbury. A lot of people now prefer to talk to somebody miles away via a phone than communicate with the person stood next to them, particularly if they have a common, cheap looking phone.

Just don't start me on the traffic jams caused by idiots playing with their mobiles on busy pathways

[puppetmode]

I watched Lady GaGa at the BBC festival in Carlisle recently (on TV mind). When she came on, instead of the bounce and euphoria as should be expected from the start of any anticipated gig, there was just a sea of mobiles and cameras. The crowd was lit up more than the stage. Such a shame were heading this way.

Great, get two or three shots during the gig but enjoy the frickin thing, you're only there once.

I think the live and let live thing is what we all should live our lives by. BUT, having someone in a tent at a festival with their back to the stage and shouting to someone on the phone for half the set does get just a teeny weeny bit irritating, oh I don't know, by the 2ND time it happens!

Edited June 18, 2011 by puppetmode

[nat2006]

Are people really expecting there smart phones to last from wednesday morning to sunday. Mine bearly lasts a day. Carphone warehouse are doing a phone for a penny if you buy £10 credit. That'll do me for glastonbury x

[TwistedReligion]

undoubtedly be on an uber cool pedestal somewhere with nothing but a muddy tan line and a new list of "dont's" as reminder of your time at glasto.

[tinktink]

I say each to there own, people with phones don't worry I am to busy having a good time to worry what other people are doing

[McWiggins]

I have to agree, There are more and more posts cropping up on this forum with a tone of disapproval at other peoples ways of enjoy themselves...

"Don't wash your hair, don't take pictures, don't sit on a chair in pyramid field, don't see anything on the main stages, don't do it sober, don't make any phone calls, don't change your clothes, don't shower, dont sleep, don't bring your own food, don't plan anything, don't bring flags, don't <enter your own gripe here>........."

.....then, in the next breath, the exact same people will preach about the "glastonbury vibe" and "the glastonbury way"...surely that should encompass a strong element of live and let live?

Why not change it to; Do whatever you like, its your festival, your time to enjoy yourself and your money you spent on getting the ticket. If people want to share their glastonbury with other people by posting to facebook, let them. If they want to capture every minute of their festival on their iphone, let them. If they want to sit on a chair in the pyramid field for 5 days, let them (you'll be somewhere else remember as its uncool to watch anything at the pyramid - see "don't" list.)

Why bog yourself down with what other people are doing? It may well be (very likely in fact, that you have likely done things to annoy/negatively impact on them too. Their annoying use of their mobile phone counteracts your BO from not showering, just for example.

If your argument is they are impairing your own ability to enjoy the festival, then YOU are doing something wrong. While they are enjoying sharing their photos and videos of their favourite band they waited all year to see, you will undoubtedly be on an uber cool pedestal somewhere with nothing but a muddy tan line and a new list of "dont's" as reminder of your time at glasto.